


Cosmic Love

by starwarringavengers



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, And they were soulmates, Ben LOOKING at Rey in dresses is my aesthetic, Ben and Rey are bad at feelings and that's that on that, Ben is v confused, Can they pretend it's only sex?, Empress Rey, Eventual Gray Jedi?, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fixing it because I hated TROS, Force Dyad (Star Wars), It's not an easy love story but I promise it has a happy ending, Poe Dameron is a Good Friend, Post-Canon, Probably not for long, Rey in dresses is my aesthetic, Rey is a disaster and a pretty bad planner, Rey takes Ben's hand, Reylo - Freeform, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, Who is Rey? Will we ever know? Does it even MATTER?, actually, and an even worse spy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:47:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 73,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22285852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starwarringavengers/pseuds/starwarringavengers
Summary: There’s a nagging voice in the back of her head telling her to take Ben’s hand, outstretched towards her, the destruction of Snoke’s throne room glowing around them.“Please,”He whispers, dark eyes pleading, his trembling outstretched fingertips a sort of peace offering - a promise.“Take off your glove,” Rey commands, and there’s a flash of confusion in Ben’s eyes before he pulls his hand back and rips off the glove, just like he’d done that night through their Force bond. And Rey is looking at Ben Solo again.She places her fingertips in his palm.------Rey takes Ben's hand when he offers it to her onboard theFinalizer.But a series of miscommunications and misunderstandings, hurt and betrayal, their plans for each other go awry. Can Rey bring Ben back to the light? Were their visions of each other the same, or are they taking two separate paths that neither can follow?
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 398
Kudos: 640





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'M DOING IT, I'M DOING IT!  
> Finally, I am writing this Empress Rey piece that's been in my head basically since TLJ, and after the disaster (imo) that was TROS (minus the kiss), I am givin that shit my own ending. Full disclaimer: I have not yet decided who Rey will be related to. If you have strong thoughts one way or the other after this first chapter, feel free to comment ;) or contact me on Tumblr @ starwarringavengers!  
> This first one is short, but more will follow shortly!  
> As always, thank you for reading. <3

There’s a whirlwind of black and red and blue and fire in the throne room as they fight, back to back, the Force _singing_ around them as they work in tandem, as if it’s praising their togetherness. From the moment Rey launches the lightsaber over to Ben, the air in the room stills. 

He’s staring at her.

She’s staring at him.

Rey takes the first step to close the distance between them, eyes flashing from his and back to the fleet outside the window, a feeling of pure terror welling up inside of her. 

“Call off the strike,” Rey says finally, “Now, Ben.” 

She can’t even hide the surprise that crosses her face when Ben lifts his wrist, and without taking his eyes from her, speaks into the comm to order Hux to cease the attack. A sputtering of confusion comes from the other end of the line, but he ignores it, dropping his wrist back to his side. Rey is at a loss for any more words. 

“Rey,” his voice is soft, so at odds with the horror that surrounds them. “It’s time to let old things die. Snoke, Skywalker, the Sith, the Jedi, the Rebels - Rey, I want you to join me. We can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy.” 

His words speak of newness and rebirth, of leaving everything behind. But Rey has already left everything behind, had left it all the moment she left Ahch-To to come to Ben. No one in her life now will ever understand that decision, and she’s not sure she wants to have to explain it. How could she look at the people she knows now, at Leia and Luke, and tell them that neither of the paths they offer are the right ones? 

Rey can never be a Jedi. 

There’s a nagging voice in the back of her head telling her to take Ben’s hand, outstretched towards her, the destruction of Snoke’s throne room glowing around them. 

_“Please,”_ he whispers then, dark eyes pleading and trembling outstretched fingertips a sort of peace offering - a promise. 

“Take off your glove,” Rey commands, and there’s a flash of confusion in Ben’s eyes before he pulls his hand back and rips off the leather, just like he’d done that night through their Bond. And Rey is looking at Ben Solo again. 

It’s Ben Solo’s hand that she places her fingertips in.

<hr>

“Your foot is too far forward,” Ben growls, knocking Rey back with another powerful swing of the lightsaber her way. She wants to _scream._

“ _You_ are not playing fair. You said _Ataru,”_ Rey reminds him with an annoyed clip in her voice, “You’re using _Djem So.”_

“I told _you_ to use Ataru _,”_ Ben counters, stepping forward to air a strike at her ribs, that she blocks with an outstretched hand. “I never specified that I also had to use the same form.” 

“Which only reinforces my earlier point, which is that you’re not being _fair,”_ Rey shouts, sliding under his blade as he aims, stopping it with her own. 

“Life’s not fair, Rey,” Ben tells her darkly, thumbing off his lightsaber and instead ducking and twisting and bending away from her still glowing blade, as if he’s testing his own ability to maneuver away from her. It absolutely _enrages_ her when he does this. She just wants him to _fight back._

Rey reaches out a hand and focuses all the energy she has on his retreating form, asking the tendrils of the Force to wrap around his ankle and pull him down. It listens. 

She grins in triumph when he hits the ground with a groan. 

“That is _not_ Ataru,” Ben huffs, lying sprawled on his back on the black training mat, bare torso looking even more pale against the stark darkness of the room. Rey steps over to him and holds out her hand. “You’d be stronger if you stopped _asking_ for the Force to do things, and just _bent_ it.” 

Rey shakes her head. “I told you - I won’t ever abuse it. It does what I ask, so why force its hand?” 

“Because it will make you more powerful,” Ben explains, _again._

“Only on the outside, Ben,” Rey reminds him, “Coexistence with the Force is what keeps it alive.” 

For a moment, he looks at her strangely, taking her hand and standing to his full height. His stature used to be intimidating, especially when they spar - but now Rey finds it a useful challenge. And extremely, irritatingly arousing.

“My mother will be here today,” Ben reminds her quietly, but the pain that goes through Rey at the thought of Leia Organa is _nothing_ compared to the anxiety that trickles through their Bond, seeping off of Ben like a sickness. “Have you made a decision about whether or not to tell her you’re here?” 

Rey glances up at the porthole in the ceiling, studying the stars as they rush by for a moment to avoid answering the question. “I think she already knows,” she admits finally. 

Ben nods. “I think she does, too.” 

“Do you think she’ll be angry?” Rey asks. Ben looks at her with narrowed eyes for a moment, but doesn’t respond. She doesn’t really need him to - she already knows the answer. Rey is sure that Leia has no doubts about where Rey disappeared to. 

And she has no doubt that Leia Organa will use Rey being in the middle to her every advantage, just as Ben plans to. 

Rey can’t say that she blames mother or son for it. 

“Get ready,” Ben instructs, in the voice that Rey quietly associates with Kylo Ren rather than the man she’s gotten to know. “She won’t wait long.” 

<hr>

In the privacy of her quarters, Rey stares at herself in the mirror and contemplates exactly how her life turned this way. The woman who looks back at her now is in some ways, unrecognizable. Her hair is longer and fuller and her body is tighter with training, adorned in stupidly ornate jewels that she already can’t wait to tear off. Her lips and cheeks are redder.

She is smarter. 

Three months with the First Order has taught Rey all she needs to know to take it down, and Leia is the final piece of her puzzle. Rey just prays to the Force that she has the courage to face her, after disappearing the way she did. 

Rey had taken Ben’s hand because she’d seen what they could do together. But each day that goes by, the visions she’d seen in the hut on Ahch-To seem further and further away - and every day she wonders if she’s interpreted them all wrong. She wonders exactly which side they’ll stand on together, or if there will be a side to take at all. She can admit, just a little bit, that everything she’d seen was vague. Could it be that they had seen the same things? That they’re pulling each other towards the same line without realizing they were both right?

Frustrated by her continuous lack of understanding, Rey turns away from the mirror and reluctantly pulls her shoes from the floor. There are lots of things she’s learned, living aboard one of the First Order’s many large command ships in the pat three months. Practically the first thing she learned was this she _hates heels._ She wears them, of course, because they’re practically the only shoe that’s been given to her besides the boots she wears to train in, and it’s nearly out of spite that she’s mastered walking in them. It took about two weeks of blisters and pacing around in her rooms to get used to them, finding which ones were more comfortable than others, and gritting her teeth every time she wears them. The more straps, the better - it’s less likely she’ll step right out of the shoe when she wears it, then. 

The closet aboard her room on the ship is stocked with everything that is completely unpractical and far too luxurious. Thus far, she’s dealt only with the dresses that are flowy, that her legs can move in. And the jumpsuits. She quite likes those, though she doesn’t plan on admitting it. 

The one she’s chosen today is black, and fabric made into a skirt falls transparent and floating around her hips, trailing behind her as she walks. At least the pants are connected, even if such excess fabric has no use other than being in her way. Rey clips the gold belt around her waist and ties the shoes up on her feet, rising to full height just as the buzzer announces Ben’s arrival. 

“She’s here,” he states, waltzing in through the door that opens only for the two of them. An extra security measure that perhaps Rey should be grateful for - she has no doubt that there are people aboard the ship who would rather see her dead.

“I know,” Rey replies, glancing out at the starry expanse that the window reveals. She had felt when Leia landed on the ship, and in turn had felt the flash of confusing emotion that had emanated from Ben through the Bond. Rey takes a breath and turns back to him. 

His eyes are intent on her, dark. 

“Let’s go.” 

<hr>

There are things about Ben Solo that Rey doesn’t understand, and then there are things that she understands perfectly well. 

Where he learned to move the way he does, is something she _doesn’t_ know. 

Leia moves with determined grace, her head held high, and Han had walked with a distinct sort of swagger. Luke paced, thoughtfully and controlled. 

Ben Solo moves in a far more primal manner. There are hints of his family in each step he takes, from Leia’s grace and Han’s almost sliding stride, a little bit of Luke’s straight-backed stance - and then there’s the slight prowl in his gait, as if he’s always hunting for something, chin down and eyes upturned in a way that is meant to be daunting. Rey knows everyone else finds him intimidating. She finds him fascinating. 

Rey follows quietly behind said striding man as they make their way to the upper level of the ship. 

_Stop thinking so loud,_ he calls through their Bond, hands clenching in front of her. Rey stops short. 

_I can’t do it,_ she tells him. Mid-step, Ben swings around to look at her, the escort party with General Hux and Pryde and Guards stopping with them. Ben closes the distance between them in three short steps. 

**_Rey,_** even in her head he sounds like he’s growling. 

_I can’t face her, Ben._

_And you think this is any easier for me?_

“I hate it when they do this,” Hux mutters with an annoyed sigh. Rey pays no attention. 

_I’ll wait outside,_ Rey thinks to him, and doesn’t do him the service of keeping eye contact for him to respond before walking past him, headed in the direction of the conference room. 

_She’s going to see you either way,_ he reminds her, _Face your fears, Jedi._

It’s much more than a fear that Rey is facing as she walks down the corridor next to Ben. She feels Leia’s Force signature lingering beyond the closed door, and with it, she feels Poe. And Finn. No, what she faces here is not fear - it’s the reality of her choice, the disappointment and pain that she’s caused. It’s nothing so trivial as fear. 

_If you hadn’t of joined me, they’d be dead already._ Ben reminds her of this in a hushed tone from his head to hers. She rounds on him, hand on the door to stop him from opening it. 

“Don’t you _dare_ use these people against me like that,” Rey hisses, glaring daggers into Ben’s dark eyes. _You promised me I wasn’t a prisoner when I took your hand. Don’t treat me like one._

Behind them, Hux clears his throat. “Supreme Leader,” he snaps, “We really must be getting on with this.” 

“Stay here,” Ben instructs her then, fury in his eyes as Rey steps back and allows him to open the door, shaking as it promptly shuts once the party has entered the room. 

She had wanted to stay back. But now that he’s forced her out of the room, she wants back in it. 

Rey pulls back open the door and is met with the face of Leia Organa and her son, both staring at her with wide eyes. 

“So, you’ve kept her alive, then? Poor move on your part,” Poe says, and Rey figures that it’s addressed at Ben, but she can’t move her eyes to confirm. She’s only just _now_ realizing how alike Leia and Ben’s eyes are, how similar in shape and how dark they look in anger. “You have _no idea_ what she is.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> leia wants to talk to her son and our two space babies make absolute fools of themselves - but what's new?

She’s going to be the death of him. She’s absolutely, positively either going to _get_ him killed, or kill him herself.

 _I told you to stay outside,_ he thinks to her. Rey purses her lips a little bit, drawing her shoulders back and looking him square in the eye.

“Well, I didn’t want to,” she answers aloud.

“And I told _you_ to keep your mouth shut,” From beside Ben, Leia hisses to Poe, who raises an eyebrow, still staring between him and Rey, who stands still in the doorway with her hands on her hips. Her tiny waist is on display and there’s a fury in her eyes as she regards him, a whisp of hair coming loose from her updo. Ben tears his eyes away from her, and it takes all the willpower he possesses to do so.

“Do you mean to imply that _you_ know who she is, Dameron?” Ben asks the pilot, who unsurprisingly doesn’t bother backing down. He hardly has the decency to look frightened, as if Ben needed that blow to his ego right now.

“I mean to imply that you’re a fucking _fool,_ Kylo Ren, if you think that Rey is going to play whatever game -“

“This is going poorly,” Finn interjects with a sigh, just as Leia holds her hand up to stop Poe from speaking further.

“Enough!” His mother snaps, all the fire and determination he remembers from his childhood back in an instant, as she stands straighter and somehow looks taller. “That’s enough.”

“Quite,” Hux echoes, and Ben wonders if anyone would notice if he choked him to death right here and now.

“Poe, please step outside,” Leia tells the pilot in a hushed tone, while Ben tries to keep from smirking in something like triumph. “In fact, if everyone wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer to speak to my son alone.”

___

Rey stands in the doorway, shocked still as Poe and Finn and the First Order generals walk towards where she’s standing. She has enough sense left to move out of the way, her eyes still partially glued to Ben and his mother, who are staring at each other as if they’ll either start screaming, or perhaps start crying.

Poe barrels towards her at a speed practically unknown to man.

“Rey -“

She holds a hand up to stop him.

“General Hux, please inform Supreme Leader Ren that I will be speaking with these two gentlemen in an adjacent conference room, and if he needs me, he can fetch me himself,” Rey states, addressing the scowling redhead even as she walks over to open the other door.

“Yes, Mistress Rey,” Hux grits, like her name coming from his mouth is the most distasteful thing he’s ever had the displeasure of saying. Oh well. She hopes it is.

Rey ushers Poe and Finn quietly into the other room, trying her best to look poised and regal even as her heart is pounding wildly in her chest. She’s really got to get her emotions under check around these people, or they’ll start to see right through her.

“We thought you were dead!” Finn nearly screeches as soon as Rey has slid the door shut.

“I’m so sorry,” Rey gasps, falling into their open arms despite the anger and confusion she can feel radiating off of them. They circle her close, and Rey feels like crying.

“Why did you do it, Rey?” Finn asks quietly, against her hair, and for once she’s so glad she can’t see the look on his face, because she knows that it’s full of hurt.

“It was the only way to save you,” Rey chokes out, “They were firing at the fleet and I needed to make sure they’d let you go - staying here was the only way.”

“Did he force you?” Poe asks, suddenly flashing with anger.

“No, no,” Rey says quickly, “I chose to stay.”

“You chose to stay with Kylo Ren? Rey, that man is -“

“I _know_ what he is, Poe,” Rey tells him, sighing a little as she pulls back to look at her friends. “I know who he is. And I believe that I can bring him back to the light. You just have to trust me.”

Poe and Finn share a glance that Rey can’t read, but their Force signatures swim with uncertainty.

“You’re putting a lot of faith in him,” Finn says quietly, and Rey slowly nods her head. If her faith turns out to be misplaced, then at the very least she can say she tried.

“Not in him,” Rey clarifies, “More like a lot of faith in the Force.”

They’re not convinced, but thankfully Poe and Finn trust her, because they both give a small nod after a moment.

“You look, uh,” Poe begins, clearing his throat, “You look nice.”

Rey bursts out laughing.

The tension in the room recedes, and Rey feels her two friends’ slowly go back to normal.

—

“Where is she?” Ben asks, stepping outside the conference room and leaving his mother. He’s on edge and in pain and he’d really like to _sleep_ for the first time in his life, so he’s going to dump Rey with Leia as fast as possible, draft an Accord, and promptly fuck off - and hope he doesn’t have to speak to his mom again for at least a year.

He doubts he’ll get that lucky.

Rey steps out of an adjacent conference room then, the pilot and the traitor on her heels. Ben doesn’t know what they’ve spoken about, and plans to get it out of her later, mostly because he’s distracted at the moment - her face is flushed with laughter and she’s _smiling_ a little bit. He hasn’t seen that smile in a bit.

Leia was right. He _has_ been unfair to her. Not cruel necessarily, but unfair.

Pushing thoughts of his mother’s scoldings out of his mind, Ben steps aside to let Rey in the doorway. “She wants to speak with you,” he tells her, breathing in the scent of the desert wildflowers she likes to sprinkle her bathwater with. It lingers, sweet and lush, with a tang of greenery. It’s clean and somehow so alluringly sexy on her.

“Alright,” Rey says quietly, and when Ben meets her eye, she looks frightened.

 _She’s not angry,_ he tells her quietly, _She loves you._

Rey’s eyes sparkle with unshed tears, and Ben knows that it’s time for him to step away from this, to digest everything his mother said and stay far, far away from Rey and her pretty eyes.

“Shall I begin drafting the Accord, Supreme Leader?” General Hux asks after the door has swung shut behind Rey.

“Yes,” he tells her, “Be sure to insert a clause that states that if any member of the First Order is found to be violating the terms of the Peace Accord as we rebuild, they’ll be dealt with swiftly. And without contention.”

Hux’s nostrils flare in anger as he regards Ben. “Very well, Supreme Leader.”

General Pryde steps forward from behind Hux. “Supreme Leader, if I may -“

“You may not,” Ben snaps. “You may be second in command despite my better judgement, but you’d do well to remember that the First Order that you serve is not one of your creation. We are not the Empire. And we will not behave as such.” Ben’s blood rushes in his ears as he stares at the Allegiant General, a man who he has never trusted as far as he could throw him. And new information from his mother says that he should trust him even less, moving forward.

It’s almost amusing, the look on Enric Pryde’s face when Ben finishes speaking. Not nearly as comical as the look on Poe Dameron’s, but comical enough, that Ben smiles internally.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Enric says finally, bowing his head in a gesture of respect that Ben figures is the farthest this man could ever go in acknowledging that Supreme Leader Kylo Ren still resides above him in rank.

Mildly satisfied, Ben turns to walk away when he realizes Enric has caught up to his side.

“You may believe you serve no master, Supreme Leader, but I fear soon you will find we are all terribly mistaken,” Pryde murmurs. The words feel like the serrated edge of a knife dragging up Ben’s spine. But when he turns to face the General, he’s already stepped away and headed towards the Bridge.

—

“Don’t fear my son, Rey,” Leia tells her, as Rey steps into the room and shuts the door behind her. The older woman stands staring out at the black sea of space, her hands folded in front of her and hair done perfectly, with not a single strand out of place.

“I don’t,” Rey tells her, a twinge of defiance in her voice.

“Yes, you do,” Leia sighs, “Just not in the way you think you do.”

Rey doesn’t know what to make of that, and opens her mouth to further question her, but Leia sits down and pats the seat next to her, looking at her seriously. So, Rey sits.

“When my son invited me to board this ship and discuss a Peace Accord with the First Order, I knew you were on board. He never would have done this otherwise,” Leia says, looking past Rey at the glossy top of the table. “I know too, better than your friends, I think, that you’ve made the right choice in staying here.”

“It doesn’t feel like the right choice, General,” Rey admits, looking up into Leia’s dark brown eyes. “It feels wrong to hurt the people that I love.”

Leia nods. “But it will feel worse to hurt yourself.”

In the time that Rey has known Leia, which admittedly is not long, she has never known her to speak in riddles the way she is now. Rey feels like she’s in a trance, looking at the woman she’s put so much trust into, who as each second passes makes less and less sense.

“Interesting, that you’re free to roam. How did Ben explain to his Supreme Council that the former Supreme Leader’s murderer was not to be jailed?” Leia questions, and Rey raises an eyebrow at the abrupt change of topic.

“It wasn’t me,” Rey tells her, reciting the rehearsed story with a shake of her head, knowing full well that Leia won’t believe it. “It was Luke.”

Leia nods, humming.

Rey can’t get the words out of her mouth, unsure if Leia is upset with her, that she’d gone along with Ben’s plan to implicate Leia’s brother and frame him for the murder of the Supreme Leader.

“No matter,” Leia says, finally turning her lips up into a smile as she stands. “You look beautiful, Rey.”

Leia offers her arms to Rey, and with her heart in her throat, Rey steps into the hug and deflates with relief at the feeling.

“I know who killed Snoke,” Leia whispers quietly, “And I know it wasn’t you.”

——

Rey can’t convince herself to stop crying as she watches the Resistance ship sail out of the hangar, her friends and Leia aboard. She’d watched Ben and Leia sign the Peace Accord, but the whole thing felt too good to be true.

Something will go wrong, she can feel it. In fact, she’s almost sure that _she’ll_ be the reason something goes wrong.

Tears fall anyway, as her friends disappear into hyperspace and Rey is left alone in her quarters, shoes off and feet tucked under her as she curls up on the plush chair facing the window. She understands now, how even with all the wealth in the galaxy surrounding you, you can still be lonely. But she’s always been lonely, so there’s not much to say about it. It’s no new sensation.

Rey ends up dozing off, tears drying on her cheeks as the ship begins its twilight cycle, the glow of her room turning to a dusky orange, like the desert.

 _Rey,_ she hears in her head. _Are you in your room?_

 _Where else would I be?_ She doesn’t mean to be so snappy, but she doesn’t like being woken up from sleep and she especially doesn’t feel like talking to Ben Solo, even if he _did_ just stop a years-long war with his signature.

Is she cruel for that?

Rey feels a little flash of amusement through the Bond, but then it fades, and she’s left continuing to stare into space until the door to her rooms opens.

“Knock,” she instructs him dully.

Behind her, Ben sighs and she hears the squeak of his shoes as he steps back out, and the doors close. Rey perks up, twisting to see that he’s indeed left the room.

A knock sounds on the metal door.

Rey fights a smile. “Come in,” she calls.

And in walks a disgruntled Ben Solo, his smirk disguised with a half-assed glare sent her way.

“See, how hard was that?” Rey jokes, standing from her seat as he steps into the foyer. He’s devoid of his cloak and jacket, standing before her only in black pants and boots and a black sweater. He looks painfully _normal_ this way, she’s noticed. And she doesn’t see him like this often, even after three months on the ship. Only when they train and then sometimes when their Bond opens during the day and he’s not in a meeting. Usually, she’s in the library.

“Would you like to have dinner?” Ben asks then, in a voice that holds a little twinge of hope. Rey turns from her spot at the vanity where she’s begun to fix her makeup stained cheeks.

“What?” she asks dumbly, “Together?”

Ben looks up at the ceiling as if in exasperation, his hands clasped behind him. “Yes, together.”

Rey considers this. Three months on the same ship and they’ve never _actually_ shared a meal together. Sometimes he enters her quarters _while_ she’s eating, usually before training. It’s strange, she’s realizing now - they should eat together, right? They should be, what, _friends?_

“Okay,” Rey says finally, nodding. “We’ll have dinner.”

“Great,” Ben says in one rush of breath, “Dining room. Twenty minutes,” he tells her, and then turns in a flurry of black hair and black clothing and the door slides shut behind him, and Rey glances back up at herself in the mirror. What does she wear to dinner with the Supreme Leader?

A traitorous voice in her head says, _something beautiful,_ while her more practical side screams, _just wear pants!_ She painstaking stares at her closet for the first ten minutes of her allotted 20-minute timeline, fiddling with the fabrics as she brushes through them. She can’t stay in her now-wrinkled jumpsuit, so she decides that a simple black dress will just have to do. She throws it on over her head and looks down.

Half the skirt is just, _not there?_ It’s there, it’s just that there are slits where her legs peek out and what a wonderful thing it is to walk in! But as she begins to move in delight, Rey realizes just how high the cuts in the fabric come up.

She has five minutes.

With a growl of annoyance, Rey fixes her hair up into a haphazard bun and slides on flats, nearly running out of her quarters and in the direction of the dining room. Ben runs nearly right into her as he walks with his head down, and they meet at the doorway. He looks as flustered as she feels.

He’s put a different shirt on, something that buttons up and overtop he wears a _stupidly_ well tailored jacket. Rey swallows past a lump in her throat as Ben holds out a hand to gesture her into the room.

She breezes past him and towards the delicious looking spread that’s laid out on the table, complete with floating fruit and deep-fried Nuna legs, mouthwateringly laid out on beautiful plates. Even after a few months on the ship, Rey will never get used to seeing such delicious food put before her.

Ben takes a seat across from her at the small table, flashing her a little smile as he pours them both glasses of emerald wine, and Rey has never wanted to drink alcohol so fast in her life. It’s sweet on her tongue, the lingering tang of fermented fruit dancing around her mouth as she sips on the drink, watching as a droid sets down a first course of Acid-beet salads.

“So,” Ben starts, just as Rey has tucked her fork into the purple-colored vegetable. “My mother.”

Rey raises an eyebrow. “Leia, yes,” she says, admittedly being just a _tad_ playful. Ben rolls his eyes.

“She informed me that the members of the Resistance miss you,” Ben tells her.

“Is this your idea of small talk?” Rey snaps.

“I was going to offer that they visit you, but if you’d rather not discuss it -“

“No, wait,” Rey gasps, “No, I do - I want to discuss it.”

Ben looks up at her, dark eyes wide and far more innocent-looking than Rey thinks is really fair. “Well, we can discuss it if you don’t snap at me before you hear what I have to say.”

Rey rolls her eyes. “Because you listen to me _so well.”_

“Are you always this impossible?”

“I don’t know, am I? You’re basically the only person I’ve had any interaction with while I’ve been prisoner on this stupid ship -“

“You’re not a prisoner, Rey -“

“Then _stop_ treating me like one!” Rey shouts, slamming her hand down on the table in an outburst of anger. Ben’s eyes flick from hers to the air around her, and once she takes a breath, she realizes she’s been levitating her glass and plate and knives, which are pointed precariously at him. Rey shuts her eyes and listens to the diningware clatter back down onto the table. “Sorry,” she mutters.

“No, I should be the one apologizing, I think,” Ben says after a moment of silence that hangs in the air between them. “My mother brought it to my attention that perhaps I’ve been harsher than intended. Maybe a little neglectful.”

Rey bites the deprecating comments on her tongue in favor of letting him speak.

“I never really meant to isolate you from interaction, and I didn’t take into consideration that I am the only person you know or even remotely trust, on this ship. So, I’m sorry. I’ll be better,” Ben says, not meeting her eyes and instead training his gaze on his glass as he twirls it around on the table.

Rey figures that he must get this particular streak of bullheaded stubbornness from his father.

Ben smirks, so brief she almost misses it. “My mother said that it ran in both of the families; there’s no telling where it comes from.”

Rey wants to keep from smiling, but the thought of Leia scolding a teenage Ben for being stubborn is a sweet sight that invades her brain.

Then she goes cold.

“You heard that,” she says, “You heard me think that?”

Ben raises an eyebrow at her and tells her that _of course_ he heard her say that, she said it out loud, didn’t she?

“No, I didn’t,” Rey huffs, swinging an arm out in exasperation and knocking over her wine glass in the process. She’s almost grateful for the opportunity to stick her face under the table and ignore him for a moment as she goes to pick up the pieces, but then she looks up and he’s right there, around the side of the table and stooping down to help her.

A strand of hair falls from her updo and Ben thinks that he _really likes how her eyes look when her hair is down, and her lips are a really nice shape, aren’t they? Wonder what they would feel like -_

Rey slams her head on the bottom of the table, hissing in embarrassment and annoyance as she stands, glaring at Ben.

“Okay?” he asks, hand out as if he’ll take her head in his hands and examine the spot she’s bumped, but he doesn’t actually move more than a few inches closer.

“Fine,” Rey grits out, brushing a few stray crystals of glass from her dress.

_Legs legs legs legs -_

_Would you_ **_stop?_ **

“Stop what? What am I doing?” Ben asks, holding his hands out in a gesture almost like surrender.

Their minds are twisting like they’ve got no control at all over hearing each other’s thoughts.

Rey never thought dinner could be such a _disaster._

“I’m not feeling well,” Rey says, clutching at her still throbbing skull, that’s made worse by whatever their minds are doing. Their thoughts are coming together like a storm, and Rey can’t tell what’s hers and what’s his and _who_ is thinking about what it would be like to kiss who - “Goodnight, Ben.”

Rey runs out of the room before she can make more of a fool of herself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome baaaaccckkkk! thank you so much for reading! I promise the love story part is coming soon, I'm just trying to set up a little bit of plot first ;)

Ben does not sleep well. He never really has. But having Rey close-by, a few steps from his own door - he can hardly think, let alone sleep.

After the disastrous dinner that had been Ben’s attempt at connecting better with Rey, he slinks off to his quarters annoyed and frustrated. For the first time in his life, Ben wishes that he had his mother or father to help him with whatever this thing is with Rey. Does he need…girl advice? Probably.

How does one deal with an incredibly powerful, beautiful, and frankly deadly woman who never does what he expects her to do? She’s an enigma - confusing and fascinating and Ben finds himself studying her more like she’s a book than a person, and perhaps that’s his problem. She’s a quick study - their lessons have shown him that. Their power together is unmatched, and Ben secretly can’t wait for the day that they find something to fight against together, just like they did in the throne room. They’d rip the fabric of the universe apart, he figures.

Ben is busy staring at the ceiling and contemplating everything about Rey when the object of all his affections appears next to him. Rey huffs. This is not the first time this has happened, and each time it does it gets stranger and stranger.

“Well, it’s not like I asked you to show up in my bed, Rey,” Ben replies to her, _this is so annoying._

She’s silent for a moment, and Ben realizes that he’s read her thoughts again. Or, perhaps he hasn’t read them - perhaps she’s projected them?

“So, um,” Rey clears her throat, and Ben glances over to find that she’s crossed her arms over her chest, looking slightly annoyed. “I’ve been thinking that perhaps we should try having dinner again. Tonight clearly didn’t go very well, but we could try again.”

Ben raises an eyebrow. “I’d like that,” he admits after a moment. Rey flushes. “I meant what I said, at dinner. That I have never intended to make you feel like you’re a prisoner here.”

Rey scoffs. “Thanks for coming to that conclusion.”

“I’m _trying_ here,” Ben assures her, but Rey is clearly unconvinced. She turns on her side took look at him, tucking her arm beneath her head and glaring a little bit.

“No, you’re not. You’re trying _now_ because you got scolded by your mother like a child -“

“Why do you have to take it there, Rey?”

“Listen to me, Ben Solo. I did not ask for things to turn out this way - I didn’t ask for this connection, and I didn’t ask to be part of this war, and I certainly didn’t ask to be left to my own devices on a First Order ship -“

“And you think I did?” Ben snaps, “You think I asked for this Bond?”

“You _did ask_ me to take your hand!”

“And you haven’t given me a moment to explain _why_ I asked you in the first place!”

“You’ve had three months, Ben!”

He takes a breath, drawing air in through his nose and letting it out in a puff between his lips, trying to slow his now-racing heartbeat. “I think we’re both being cruel,” he says finally, and Rey’s narrowed eyes widen a little, drooping to make her look a little more innocent.

“Yes, we are,” Rey concedes, and Ben watches as she picks at a loose thread on the black duvet that pools around her waist, now that they’ve both sat up in annoyance with each other.

_Why didn’t he get rid of the scar? Oh, Ben, you make no sense to me sometimes. Does he always sleep without a shirt? It’s so cold on this ship -_

“Dinner tomorrow night, then?” Ben asks slowly, shaking his head to pull back from her thoughts as they slide through her consciousness. She smiles, finally - bright and sweet.

“Yes,” she agrees, “Dinner tomorrow.”

<hr>

Rey wakes up early, warmer than usual. Outside is still the usual expanse of black that comes with orbiting space, but she can see the orange glow from the Core World of Coruscant and it’s four orbiting moons. The sight is actually quite lovely.

“It has a day cycle,” Ben murmurs behind her, “I know you miss the sun.”

“I do,” she admits, settling her head back down on the pillow.

Ben’s arm is around her. He’s snuggled up to her back. Rey is in Ben’s bed. Still.

She nearly jumps out of her skin at the realization, sliding away from him. Ben looks confused for a moment, groggy with sleep and hair tousled. He rubs a hand over his face.

“Did the connection stay open all night?” Rey asks, still flustered as she slides out of the bed.

Ben shrugs a little bit, still curled up as if her body is there to fill the space in front of him.

The connection hums and severs.

And Rey is standing in front of her own bed, barely slept in, her hands still pushing back her hair. With a sigh, she glances out at the sight of Coruscant from her own window, staring at the back of a different moon than the one she saw from Ben’s window.

“We’ll move to Coruscant today,” Ben’s voice comes through the communication device on her wall. Clearly he’s back to the land of the living, but his voice is still rough with sleep. “Be ready in two hours.”

Rey doesn’t bother responding, knowing that he knows she’s heard it. Now a whole new set of problems has been presented to her. What does she wear to Coruscant? What does she bring? What is she _doing?_

Thankfully, a knock sounds on Rey’s door with the introduction of one of the women aboard the ship, who helped her the first week with doing her hair and stocking her closet. Turns out, Rey doesn’t even have to worry about packing, because they do it for her. So instead she goes to shower and get herself ready, accepting the dark blue dress they hold out for her. It’s detailed with a high collar and beautiful dark blue stitching and a low cut bodice, complete with a huge skirt.

She kicks around in it, giggling as it twirls around her legs. There’s no way she’ll be able to walk very far in it, but it’s beautiful.

Two hours pass and Rey is following the First Order guards down to the hangar bay, being led up the ramp and into a shiny, bright ship packed with First Order generals.

“Where is B - Where is the Supreme Leader?” Rey asks Hux, who gives her his customary glare.

“The Supreme Leader insisted on piloting the ship,” Hux says, with a twinge of annoyance in his voice as he says it, almost like jealousy. Rey tries not to laugh.

“Thank you, General,” Rey says, brushing past the rest of the First Order members to make her way to the cockpit, stepping past the guards to find Ben sitting in the pilot’s seat, hands wrapped around the joysticks. He looks almost giddy, just the same way she feels when flying. Rey sits down next to him in the copilot seat.

“You may not like Coruscant,” Ben starts to say, “But have an open mind.”

“Why not?”

“It’s loud,” Ben says, tipping his head back and forth. “Lots of people.”

“Is there sunlight?” Rey asks, smiling a little.

“There is.”

“Then I’ll be fine.”

<hr>

Politics are Leia Organa’s game. Ben would rather never have anything to do with them, but being the Supreme Leader of the First Order ensures that he doesn’t have very much choice in that matter. There are vestiges of the Republic left over that dislike the First Order, and Ben’s new goal is to make sure that they can find common ground. Where his mother fought without diverging from her belief in the good and the Empire fought without compromise, Ben intends to find the middle. The gray, so to speak.

General Armitage Hux is not happy about this.

“Supreme Leader, I don’t understand _why_ you wish to entertain former Senators of the Republic when you know for a _fact -“_

“Do you ever shut up?” Ben asks, whirling around to face the redhead. “Do you?”

“Listen, _Kylo Ren,”_ Hux spits.

“I’m listening.”

“General, it would be in your best interest to, as Ren so eloquently put it, _shut up,”_ General Pryde adds, and for once Ben is glad to have someone who seems to hate Hux as much as he does.

Ben is not concerned so much with what Hux thinks of him, nor Pryde for that matter, though the former certainly poses a much larger issue that spans more decades than he’s been alive. Ben’s only goal is to take this meeting and then get right back out and back to Rey, so that they can train. She’d looked so darkly beautiful sitting next to him in the copilots seat, in a low cut dress that fell perfectly over every curve. It’s a wonder that he’s such a decent pilot, otherwise, their planetfall may not have been quite so smooth.

General Pryde’s cryptic message still lingers in Ben’s thoughts, and if he were smarter, perhaps he’d ask Rey about it. But he’s a coward when it comes to her, and history tells him not to trust her with anything that could potentially sabotage him yet, even though he wants to. He wants to have her on his side, wants to be able to share with her the fears that he harbors, in hopes that she’d do the same. It would be nice to have someone who understands.

But for now, he keeps his mouth shut, both during the meeting and when he returns to Rey, positively fuming.

“Are you -“

“Let’s go,” he growls, harsher than intended, but he can’t help it. The consistent and frequent reminders of his lineage during the meeting were ones he didn’t need - he lives every day with the knowledge of his mother’s pure goodness, and he lives every day knowing that he lets everyone in his family down, no matter who it is.

Rey gives him a raised eyebrow but follows anyway, skipping to catch up with him as he heads towards the training arena, leftover from the former Senate’s Jedi. The whole building rumbles with the ghosts of them, and Ben is sure that Rey can feel it too. Especially when they set foot in the arena - a vast and sprawling room with high ceilings, black sand floor and duracrete walls.

Ben throws down his cloak and jacket and pulls his saber from his belt, igniting the red beam and twirling it in his hands, feeling anger and fear melt away into pure power. He hears Rey’s saber ignite behind him.

“What’s got you so angry?” she questions, and the moment Ben turns, she lunges. A hissing spark of blue meets red and they’re back where they’re supposed to be - pushing and pulling with the Force and their bodies and their minds as if they’re the only two beings that exist on the whole planet.

Ben doesn’t bother responding to her question. She doesn’t really care about the answer, anyway. He can see it on her face. She’s focused on beating him. She’s gotten infinitely better, but Ben still has to remind himself not to say that he’s her teacher, because of the way she takes offense to it. He’s _not_ really, if he’s being honest with himself. They’re more like equals in this, because while he’s strong with the Force physically her mental capacity for it far outweighs his, and he’s learned from her, whether she knows it or not.

He doesn’t plan on admitting that aloud.

“You need a new blade,” Ben tells her, once they’ve called a draw on their first match and stepped to the side to practically inhale water from the canteens. Rey narrows her eyes.

“This one is fine,” she insists.

“It’s really not,” Ben counters. “It’s stuttering in your hands. It knows it’s outgrown its use.”

“How could a lightsaber die, exactly?”

“It’s not dying,” Ben clarifies, leaning against the wall to regard Rey as she studies the saber in her hands. “It’s the crystal that powers the lightsaber. The mechanics of the hilt has nothing to do with it - it’s just a housing unit. The crystal is what’s special to the Force user.”

“How?”

Ben raises an eyebrow.

“What? So far you’ve taught me combat forms and how to harness my powers, but I know you know more about the Jedi religion than you let on,” Rey states, sitting down on the bench and flashing him a teasing smile.

“Fine,” Ben sighs, not really _that_ bothered by it, but he has an image to keep up. “When a Force user is ready to construct their own lightsaber, they get sent to the Crystal Caves of Ilum to mine the crystals that grow there. They’re rare, and they’re Force-attuned. There are other planets that kyber crystals grow on, but so far the most abundant planet is Ilum.

The crystals have a sort of collective consciousness that calls to the Force user when they enter the cave. You can feel it - almost as if the crystal is sentient. If the crystal isn’t meant for you, it feels cold. But if it is, it’ll call to you.”

Rey listens as he speaks, eyes wide and interested. “What about the color?”

“There is no color to a crystal until the Jedi chooses it. The color shifts to match the nature of the owner.”

“Is that why yours is red? Because,” Rey’s sentence tapers off. “Is that why mine feels like it’s changing?”

Ben ignores what she’s clearly already regretting saying, and instead offers her a shrug. “I don’t know. It never was yours, it just called to you. Perhaps it knows that you’ve become powerful enough that it can’t attune to you the way it had before.”

Rey is quiet for a moment, still staring at the blade in her hands, turning the silver hilt around and around in her hands. “Why is it red?”

She never can let things lie, his Rey.

“Crystals can bleed,” Ben says quietly, clearing his throat and avoiding her eyes. “They’re inherently attuned to the light side of the Force, but they can be bent to the will of a dark-side user. When it bleeds, it turns, becomes unstable,” Ben explains.

“Like a soul,” Rey says quietly. Ben chances glancing up at her and instantly regrets it. “The dark side of the Force takes - never gives. It must hurt.”

Ben doesn’t respond.

“Can it be healed?”

“What?” he asks.

“The crystal, can it be healed?”

“Yes, it can.”

<hr>

They spend the rest of their few hours together forgoing lightsabers altogether, fighting instead with practice sabers and in Rey’s case, a dual-bladed staff. She moves more comfortably with it, twirling and twisting as if it’s an extension of her, exactly like she should be fighting. It’s the best he’s seen her move in months.

Being around Rey, especially when they train, calms him in a way that nothing else has before. He feels a little like his old self. When they part for dinner, Ben finds himself smiling a little bit. He’s even sort of prepared for it to be a disaster - but he hopes it’s not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Rey’s Blue Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940012178/)
> 
> [Kyber Crystal lore](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Kyber_crystal) (which I fucking love and I promise has a point)
> 
> [Also this is Rey’s dress from last chapter that I forgot to add](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940005693/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hello I'm back and we're heating up! Please be warned that there are mentions of trafficking and drinking in this chapter!

Ben was right - Rey does _not_ like Coruscant. But, there’s sunlight and she gets to eat her breakfast outside on a balcony, so it’s not _all_ bad. She usually gets mornings to herself, because she hasn’t left the tower that she’s been holed up in. Not that she really needs to - it’s like a city all by itself.

But today she’s restless, and she wants to do something. So well into the morning Rey finally leaves her table and goes searching through her formidable closet, noting that everything that was packed for her borders on _very_ fancy, and also notably _not pants._ She groans about it for a moment before resigning herself to her fate and decides on something flowy and gold, delighted that it’s _not black._

Rey twists her hair up before skipping her way down to Ben’s office, fooling absolutely everyone to let her past even doors that she’s barred from. She walks into his office with a flourish.

“Ben,” she greets, and he startles a little bit, looking up at her from his desk where a holopad sits in front of him.

“Rey? What - how did you get,” his sentence tapers off into a sigh as she grins at him. _You look like sunlight._

“I want to meet people,” Rey says in a rush of breath. Ben meets her eye with a little hint of amusement flickering across his face.

“No,” he says solidly. Rey feels her heart fall.

“No?” she squeaks in annoyance, stepping further into the room with a click of her heels. “Have you ever _met_ half of the people that you rule? Life is not just one big military conquest!” Rey tells him, her entire body flushing from her face down, mostly out of frustration, but also because of the stupid way that he’s _smirking_ at her. Silence hangs between them for a moment, electrically charged and heavy.

Across from her behind the desk, Ben sets his elbow on the arm of his chair and rubs his finger across his lips, thinking. “No, I haven’t met most of them because as I’m sure you remember, this is a relatively new role that I’m in.”

Rey narrows her eyes at him. “I’ve never been outside the Resistance _or_ the First Order ships. I don’t know anything! I want to at least go outside,” Rey tells him, tempted to add that she’ll go with or without him if he wants to insist that she’s not a prisoner.

“Now we’re having two different conversations,” Ben sighs, “Do you want to go outside, or do you want to meet the people that I see every day?”

“Trust me, I want nothing to do with the people you deal with,” Rey tells him with a shudder. “I want to see what Coruscant is like.”

Ben regards her cooly, with an unreadable expression, his dark brows slightly furrowed under a curtain of dark hair that probably needs a trim. Who cuts hair in the First Order?

“Fine,” he says after a moment. “You want to see what’s outside? Fine. We’ll start with Coruscant, this evening.”

Rey’s heart floods with excitement when he stands from his seat, clearly a little bit annoyed at acquiescing to her.

“You’re not going to like it,” he assures her, but Rey could care less. She wants to go outside, and she wants to understand from there what the First Order is all about.

A few hours later, Rey has begged for and received a pair of pants, and she’s donning a cloak before meeting Ben out on the platform. Ben, who looks nothing like he usually does while he’s busy doing First Order work. Instead of a sweeping black cloak and lightsaber on display at his hip, he wears a dark gray shirt and a brown jacket that makes him look so much like Han that for a moment, Rey does a double-take.

"Don't say it," he growls quietly, just to her. She smirks.“We won’t be long,” Ben tells Hux, who is waiting to see them off with a sour look on his face.

“See that you aren’t,” the redhead responds, before turning on his heel and marching back inside, disappearing into the bright lights of the building.

Rey slides into the seat next to Ben.

“Ready?” he asks, and Rey gives a nod - they’re in the air in seconds, gliding seamlessly along with the rest of the city, headed down to the lower levels. Rey looks on in wonder while Ben regards her with a grumpy demeanor, but she can see the amusement shimmering along the edges of his Force signature. He’s never as cold as he seems.

They stop on one of the lower platforms, outside of a bar. The planet’s cycle around them is night, but everything is brightly lit and just a little bit disorienting.

“Are we,” Rey starts, “Are we drinking?”

“ _I’m_ drinking,” Ben clarifies, holding a hand to help Rey out of the speeder and leading her into the restaurant. It’s brightly lit and there are creatures everywhere, and the tang of alcohol and perfume are present in the air. It’s not like Maz’s cantina that Rey had visited, nor is it like any of the seedy bars she’d seen while out with her friends in the Resistance. It’s a little more high-class than that - but just by a little.

Rey follows Ben’s back as he makes his way to the bar, the patrons making a space for him to move through. Rey sometimes forgets about type of power he exudes, given that it’s not always noticeable to her.

_It’s also you._

Rey shoots him a raised eyebrow in response as they sit. The woman who is working behind the bar is from a planet Rey has never met anyone from before, because she has blue-tinted skin and is practically unholy with beauty. Rey is sure she would have remembered meeting someone like her.

“Hello friends,” the woman greets them. Her voice sounds like it’s coming through a synthesizer. “What can I get you to drink?”

“What do you have that’s good?” Ben asks, and Rey’s head nearly comes off her neck with how fast she turns it. He sounds like he’s _flirting,_ batting dark eyes up at the waitress. A strange feeling settles in Rey’s chest, that feels a little bit like anger, but sadder.

“We have something new tonight that everyone likes. It’s Springwine,” the woman tells them.

“Sounds pretty,” Rey muses.

“Two rounds then, please.”

“What’s it made of?” Rey asks.

“Magic,” the woman replies, shooting her a wink before walking away.

Rey turns and glances at Ben, who’s shifted around in his seat to examine the couples on the dance floor, an unreadable expression on his face.

The drink comes to them in tall glasses, a deep berry red with mist swirling at the top. The first taste is like heaven, and it’s just like its name - springtime. Lush and warm and Rey feels like she’s basking in real sunlight.

She people-watches happily, eyes following every new couple and creature and person that comes through the door and studying them with the trained eye of a scavenger. There are little lingering fears that Rey harbors from her time on Jakku, and she’s always aware of her surroundings, but with each sip of her drink, she feels her grasp on reality slowly slipping.

When she looks at Ben, he’s staring at her. His eyes look impossibly darker in the dim light, the neon glow highlighting the scar on his face that Rey personally feels makes him look even more handsome. A little bit rugged. It offsets the regal features and pillowy lips that she likes to stare at.

By the time their second round comes, Rey is smiling and her face feels a little looser.

“Would you like to dance?” Ben asks, his voice low and close to her ear. Rey starts a little, a hand out as if to steady herself, or maybe to grasp him. She’s not sure.

“I,” she stammers, “I don’t, um, I don’t know how. I’ve never danced,” she admits shyly, looking at Ben as he drains the rest of his glass in one long sip. The column of his throat is pale and smooth-looking, and she really wants to put her lips there -

“I’ll teach you,” he says then, taking her hand and Rey follows him willingly, giddy at the feeling of her hand in his, warm and strong. There are couples already all over the floor, some dancer closer than others, and the music is loud and everything is half a second behind. Ben’s arm wraps around her waist, one hand rested on her hip and suddenly they’re pressed together, Rey’s fingers tangling behind his neck.

“This is definitely _not_ how you dance,” Rey gasps, as his body meets hers at every angle and curve in ways that Rey has never felt before. Ben chuckles in her ear - it’s a _delightful_ sound.

“Well, not at a ball, no,” he agrees, “But it doesn’t matter who we are, here.”

 _Oh,_ Rey thinks, _so that’s why we’re here._

A bar is the perfect place to watch and learn just like she’s been doing, to notice all of the things about everything she’s never seen before - and for them to disappear, for just a little while. To sit and drink and not be Rey the Jedi and Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the First Order. Just to be Ben and Rey, even if it’s just in the quiet between them.

So Rey lets the tension of those thoughts go and melts into him as they move, electricity shooting through every place his hands touch.

Ben Solo has rhythm. It shouldn’t really surprise her, but it does nonetheless.

“My father,” Ben says quietly, lips pressed to her hair. “Have you ever seen my mother dance?”

Rey giggles, pressing her face into his neck, unbothered for once by the fact that he’s read her thought. His hands knead her waist and then he takes her hand, spinning her around once. It makes her a little dizzy, but the little smile on his face is worth it.

When she comes back in, her hands tangle in his hair of their own accord and then his hands gather her close, and there are alarms going off in Rey’s head that are distant, soft and half-hearted -

“May I kiss you?” he asks, and Rey completely softens, and it’s warm and easy to tell him _yes._

So he kisses her. He kisses her like music, like ocean waves that push and pull against the shore. There’s none of the fury that she had expected, had wondered that there would be if ever they were to kiss. Instead, his kiss is slow and methodical, almost meditative, and Rey feels for a moment that she could fall asleep with their lips pressed together. But then his tongue slips over her lower lip and something warm pools in her belly, like someone has taken her insides and twisted them, but not with anxiety - with something far more pleasant.

She’s never felt that type of want before.

When they finally part to breathe, Ben is looking at her with wide, dark eyes. Then, he smiles.

“I think it’s time to get you home, Rey,” Ben says quietly, and Rey is reluctant to admit that he’s right, even as she nods her head with a little bit of giddiness. He begins to lead her off the dance floor and back out the door - Rey hadn’t even noticed him pay the tab - and she’s back in the cool air of the Coruscant lower levels, staring up at the towering, brightly lit skyscrapers.

“Excuse me, miss,” a woman says, and Rey doesn’t think twice about turning around to look at her. She’s young, with white liner around her eyes and red, pouty lips. “You forgot this.”

In her hand, she holds Rey’s black cloak.

“Thank you so much,” Rey says, smiling brightly as she takes it from the girl, who grins back.

A screech comes from around the corner.

Rey’s instinct to race towards danger might someday kill her, but she’s pretty sure that day isn’t today.

From around the corner turns a Chiss man, dressed in white robes, holding a young human woman by the hair. She seems to be struggling, but only a little. Mostly, she looks annoyed.

But Rey doesn’t like the way he’s guiding her with his hand fisting in her long purple hair. She makes to step forward.

Her new friend, the one who returned her cloak, puts a hand up. “You’re not from here, are you?” she asks, red lips downturned in a little frown.

“What?” Rey asks, “I, no. I’m not.”

“Don’t get involved,” the woman tells her, gently placing a hand on Rey’s arm. “She’s alright - sort of. She belongs to that man.”

“Belongs to him?” Rey asks, her eyebrows shooting up into her hairline. She’s familiar with the concept of indentured servitude and of the pleasure tents that existed in the Niima Outpost, but this looks like something far more sinister.

“Yes. She’s,” the woman sighs, “In the past few years, species trafficking has been rising even within the Core Worlds. That girl was taken from her home, and that man sells her off to other beings, usually for a night.”

“And that’s _allowed?”_ Rey nearly cries, her stomach sinking down to her knees.

“Allowed?” The woman scoffs, “Please, the Empire was built on the backs of slaves and gangs - where do you think the money comes from? The First Order is no different. That poor girl just got the worst end of it.”

“Rey,” Ben’s voice is stern behind her and she turns, unsure of what she wants to say to him in this moment. “Thanks for returning her cloak,” he says to the red-lipped woman, who nods.

“It was nice meeting you,” the woman says, all of their conversation seemingly forgotten as she waves a little bit and disappears inside the bar. Rey watches her go with confusion. She whirls on Ben.

“We’ll talk about it back at the Tower,” he growls suddenly, gently taking Rey by the arm and guiding her towards the speeder. She’s still a little tipsy and now she’s _angry,_ and everything feels too slow. Ben seems equally annoyed, his Force signature swimming with it, and hazy around the edges with the alcohol they’d consumed.

Rey is quiet the entire way back to the Tower, staring at the speeders as they rush by and feeling a little sick with all the movement. When they finally land, Rey takes Ben’s outstretched hand, leaning on him a little as he leads her to her quarters.

“No,” Rey slurs, “You’re not going to get out of talking about this.”

He sighs at her. “Rey, you’re not going to remember any of this conversation in the morning -“

“Try me, Solo,” Rey snaps, sitting down with a plop and staring at him. Ben shuffles his feet for a moment, before shutting the door to her room and running a hand through his hair.

“Under Snoke’s rule the First Order utilized the reach of trafficking gangs for a number of things because it was easier to pay someone else to do the dirty work,” Ben begins to explain, as Rey listens, horrified. “Part of the reason for the ceasefire with the Resistance is because I can’t fight multiple enemies at once. I can’t fight my mother _and_ kick the gangs out of their pseudo-contracts _and_ deal with the aftermath of forcing my Officers to give up any part in the owning or trading of slaves. I can’t fight that many wars at once.”

“Wait,” Rey almost gasps, looking at the floor beneath his feet as she absorbs what he’s said. “You mean _you wanted_ to be rid of the gangs?”

Ben almost looks embarrassed - and then exasperated. “I don’t have any stomach for the selling of other beings, Rey, I know you might think otherwise -“

“And what about the weapons trading and the fear?” Rey can’t help herself when she blurts it out. “Do you have the stomach for that?”

He sighs again, hands on his hips. “No, Rey, not really, but I didn’t have much of a choice in it until now. This wasn’t my doing - it was Snoke’s. I’m trying to undo everything that he did but everyone is fighting me at every turn. Politics is not straightforward - if I fight to remove one factor, I have to present another to replace it. It doesn’t happen overnight,” he tells her.

“You mean you’re,” Rey says quietly. “You’re trying to fix it?”

His embarrassed silence answers the question.

“Oh, _Ben,”_ Rey cries, half-drunkenly throwing herself into his arms and pulling him close. “I know you’re good, Ben Solo, I _know_ you are.”

He chuckles softly in her ear. “Alright, Rey, I think it’s time for you to go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Rey says, a little tearfully, stupidly filled a hope that she hasn’t felt in a while. She also feels a little useless, as she watches Ben turn down her duvet and adjust her pillow, waving her over before sinking to one knee and helping her unlace and remove her shoe.

Rey watches as he pats his leg, indicating for her other foot. He has a long nose, like Han - but there’s a bump on the bridge as if it never healed correctly from a break. Rey thinks about the passing hour, how she’s kissed that full mouth and how much she’d like the taste of him and wine colliding.

“You’re very handsome,” she blurts out as ben looks up at her, long eyelashes brushing his brows.

“And you’re very beautiful,” he tells her shyly. Rey grins.

“Will you stay with me until I fall asleep?” Rey asks as she lays down in the soft sheets, her eyes already slipping closed. Ben dims the lights and sits down on the bed next to her, and Rey hardly even feels it when he reaches a hand up to brush her hair from her face.

“Sleep, Rey.”

“Stay with me.”

“Always.”

His voice is what she hears as she drifts off, but she doesn’t catch what he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Rey’s Gold “Sunshine” Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940016597/) Ben is a softie. 
> 
> [I image Ben in a jacket like this](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/485192559857223961/) because let’s be honest would Adam Driver not look so hot in an outfit like this?? Plus like father like son
> 
> [Rey’s cloak outfit sort of](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/572027590165947241/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Am i posting two chapters in one day? mmmmmm yeah! happy birthday! surprise! lol

Rey wakes up early - so early that the sun is just beginning to limb over the skyscrapers. And, she wakes up with a pounding headache. She groans as she turns, flopping over and examining her shoes laying at the side of the bed, her jacket wrapped over the chair, and the clothes from last night still uncomfortably on her body.

She’s been hungover before, but this feels worse, like she hasn’t really slept at all. Rey drags herself from the bed and heads straight for the bathroom, staring the bath water and being filled with glee as the beautiful blue fills the porcelain tub. She only goes back to the bedroom to grab her robe and the holopad that’s started to beep.

The message from Ben says, **no training today.** _Thank Gods._ **But have a look at these.**

Attached are official First Order documents, dated within the week, temporarily suspending the stormtrooper program; detailing a cease of partnership and eventual retaliation against the Hutts; galaxy-wide procedural changes that deal with trafficking, especially of minors of applicable species.

Rey feels a rush of lightness as her eyes rove over his signature on the document covers. She intends to read them more thoroughly during her morning, but first, she soaks for a while in the warm, floral scented water as she hums to herself. Sunlight streams in from the skylight above her head, and before Rey knows it, she’s drifted back off.

She dreams of water. Not the rushing water of Ahch-To, nor the massive body of water on Tokadana. She dreams instead of a river, one that trickles gently over rocks and over her skin, gentle like the wind when it picks up strands of her hair and brushing them across her bare back.

Ben is in her dream. That’s not really new - sometimes he’s there like a light during her nightmares, a quiet spectator in others, but never really an actor. Until now.

Now, he’s next to her, all around her. More accurately, his arms are around her - it’s not the water she feels on her skin, it’s his hands. Calloused and warm and all over her in places her consciousness could never even admit to. His hair is soft in her fingers when she tangles them around his curls and pulls his face to hers. Their bodies are warm and sun kissed and Rey’s hands catch on the scars that her dream has given him on his back, though she’s pretty sure she’s not imaging them. She’s moving in ways she’s never done before, without a second thought, as if they’ve been doing this all their lives. As if she’s always let Ben shift her over his lap to touch her, as if she knows how good it’s going to feel when he dips his fingers up inside her and she gasps through their kiss, turning boneless as he works her.

Three floors above Rey’s room, Ben Solo is very rudely excusing himself from his morning briefing with his council to head towards Rey’s room. Her Force signature is surging wildly, even though Ben can feel that she’s sleeping.

His name is in her head.

When he opens the door to her quarters, he sees that her bed is unmade and that she’s not there, and he’s confused for a moment.

“Rey,” he calls her name and receives no response. Then, as if she senses him, he’s sucked into her dream.

It’s not place he’s ever seen before - the world lush with life, with water and flowers and the tang of spring air. And Rey is kissing him, tangling her fingers in his hair and she’s letting him _touch_ her, letting him bring her pleasure. His hands catch on every curve, every angle and sharp bone and soft, sun kissed skin.

Ben is in a trance; half in and half out of this strange connected moment in time. Aware that this is a dream, _Rey’s_ dream, but feeling that it’s real all the same.

“Ben,” she whispers his name, and his heart jumps into his throat. When he looks up at her, the sun is like a halo behind her, and _oh Gods, wait, he’s_ ** _seen_** _this before -_

“I wish this could be real.”

With a jolt, Ben forces himself from her dream, out of her consciousness, already knowing that he’s seen too much and hadn’t even tried to stop himself. He’s panting as if he’s run a mile, and it takes an extraordinary amount of effort to keep himself from reentering her dream. Head in his hands, he flops down on the couch in the drawing room and runs his hands over his face.

Does Rey know that he was there? Could she feel him like he could feel her?

A timid voice enters his head.

_Ben, is that you?_

He doesn’t even want to admit it.

_Yes._

_Are you in my room?_ She sounds almost amused.

_You were projecting. I came to make sure you were okay._

Rey is silent for a moment, her signature churning.

 _I fell asleep in the bath,_ Rey tells him, and he can feel her smile through the Bond.

 _Be more careful, Rey,_ he tells her. _There’s caf here for you._

There’s a little spike of excitement through the Bond, so Ben gets up and walks over to the table to pour the drink, hot from the carafe.

A moment passes and finally Rey emerges from the other room, wrapped in a black robe with her hair pinned up, smelling like flowers. Like in the dream. He hands her the porcelain mug, shyly meeting her eye.

“Ren!” Hux snaps through the comm device on his wrist. Rey flashes a smile at his exasperated expression.

“What?” he asks back, equally as biting, as he pours himself a cup of caf with the Force. Rey watches with a raised eyebrow as she sits down on the chaise, legs tucked up underneath her.

“Where are you? Seeing as you didn’t find it necessary to finish your meeting, I need to speak with you about an urgent matter,” Hux explains, out of breath as if he’s running.

“I’ll be in my office in a moment -“

“Nevermind, General Hux, I’ve found him,” Without warning Captain Phasma, in a black pantsuit rather than her usual silver armor, waltzes into the room. Ben rolls his eyes at her. Out of people on his council, he actually likes Phasma the most - but he’s never going to tell her that, mostly because it’s funny to get on her nerves.

“Good morning, Phasma,” Rey greets, flashing the tall woman a sweet smile. Ben almost laughs.

“Good morning?” Phasma asks, “My Lady Rey, it is not morning. I have been up for six hours.”

Rey grins behind her coffee.

“Did you run out of a meeting so urgently for _this?”_ Hux asks appearing in the doorway. “To have coffee?”

“Force matters,” Ben states plainly, sipping his coffee in a very matter-of-fact way. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Nah, we understand perfectly well what’s happening, _Ren,”_ The voice that reaches him across the room causes his heart to stop.

In fact, Ben is pretty sure he’s stopped breathing.

“Voe?” he asks, hardly wanting to chance turning around to look at her, afraid what will follow the glance will be a well-deserved punch to the face.

“Voe Ren, now,” she states, white-blonde hair pushed back in severe braids. She looks angry, just as he would expect her to be. The last time Ben saw Voe, he was looking at her in the light of the flames emitting from Luke Skywalker’s temple. And she had her green-bladed lightsaber pointed in his direction.

“I see,” Ben says carefully, setting his coffee down. “And was this what we needed to discuss, General Hux?”

“Not quite,” Hux explains.

“Voe Ren will assist Lady Rey from now on,” Phasma states.

“Excuse me?” Rey snaps from the couch. “Assist me in _what?”_

“Enough with the confused pleasantries,” General Pryde says from the doorway. Now, there’s too many people and Ben is truly considering throwing his coffee at everyone and shooing them away.

“Explain,” Ben demands, staring straight at Pryde, who looks too smug for his liking.

“Very well,” he begins, “It’s come to everyone’s attention that Rey has progressed well in her training, and she has accompanied us everywhere. It has also come to the Council’s attention that as the Supreme Leader of the galaxy, you are in a position that is, shall we say, a little more _public.”_

Next to him, Rey has stood up, and he feels her fierceness like heat from flames.

“What do those two things have to do with each other?” Ben asks slowly, his voice a growl.

“He’s trying to say -“ Hux begins, but Pryde holds a hand up to cut him off.

“In a position of power, you need a wife. We propose to suggest Rey.”

Ben is sure he’s heard him wrong.

A wife? _Rey?_

Beside him, she looks as confused as he feels.

“Could this extremely untactful announcement not have waited until there were a few more details discussed?” Ben snarls, to which Pryde raises a gray eyebrow.

“Supreme Leader, you saw it fit to leave our meeting this morning before it could be discussed. So we’re bringing it up now.”

Ben seethes.

“No,” he says then.

“Absolutely not,” Rey echoes.

Of course he’d assumed she would say no the moment he grasped the concept, so why does it feel so sharp to hear her say it?

“It’s true that she does not come from any influential family and that her history leaves much to be desired,” Pryde says, shooting Rey a distasteful look that Ben would rather slap from his face. “But two strong Force users at the seat of the Empire is an unparalleled level of strength that has been unseen for generations. And, it may help you to appeal to the masses.”

This is his mother’s political games all over again, games he sworn he’d never play.

The room spins and he can feel Rey bristling through the Bond, a shared confusion taking over their minds that swirls and connects in a way that almost makes Ben queasy.

“Perhaps Rey and I should discuss this first,” Ben states, “And then I’ll get back to you. You’re all dismissed. Except for Voe.”

Yet another thing to deal with.

 _Who is she?_ Rey asks.

 _Give me a minute,_ Ben thinks back as the First Order officers slowly file out of Rey’s quarters. He nearly collapses the moment they’re gone, everything in his body screaming for him to curl in on himself, to avoid this for as long as possible.

Oh, he’s so _fucked,_ in more ways than one.

The door shuts, and once again he’s face to face with Voe, the woman’s dark eyes narrowed into slits as she looks at him.

“Rey,” Ben begins, “This is Voe. We trained together at Luke’s academy.”

“Until he jumped ship,” Voe snaps. “And now suddenly you’re _Supreme Leader.”_

“ _You’re_ a Knight of Ren?”

“ _You_ killed your father?”

“ _You_ joined the dark side? I could do this all day,” Ben shoots back, suddenly devolving into the same fifteen year old boy he once was, bickering with a much younger, much shorter girl than stands in front of him now. “What are you doing here?”

“Finding purpose,” Voe snarls.

Ben knows a lie when he hears one, but he doesn’t feel like dwelling on it now. Rey is sitting on the chaise, looking up at them with a bewildered expression. He finally looks at her, studies for a moment the fear shimmering at the edge of the Bond.

“And now they want you two to get married, apparently,” Voe sighs.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go deal with that in a second,” Ben growls, “First, you so much as _breathe_ sideways, Voe, you’re gone. I’m not going to play games with you. And you’ll listen to Rey.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she tells him, flashing white teeth in a wide grin.

 _Will you be okay?_ Ben asks Rey.

 _Yes,_ she says, _I think I will._

With a glance back at her to confirm, Ben stomps out of the room and goes in search of his council.

For a moment, all Rey can do is _stare_ at the striking woman in front of her. She has skin the color of earth and blindingly white hair, and it’s such a startling contrast that Rey can’t look away. She’s beautiful and terrifying, in a way.

“Hi, Rey,” Voe says, holding out a small hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

Wearily, Rey stands and takes the other woman’s greeting. “Hi,” it sounds flat and a little scared coming out of her voice.

The other woman smiles a little bit. “The General sent me,” she says then.

Rey’s head whirls. “Le-”

Voe says quickly, “I’m here for you, Rey. I’ll be your bodyguard.”

Understanding slowly unfurls in Rey’s head, and she nearly hugs her. “So,” she says then, clearing her throat. “You are a Knight of Ren?”

Voe nods. “Yes. The Knights of Ren began as a group of marauders, long before the first Empire was ever even a thought. I joined the Knights of Ren after traveling and finding that the dark side called to me,” Voe tells her, but Rey can see the look in the other woman’s eyes that tells her all she needs to know. “The Knights have a code: live life the way we please, take what the galaxy gives, and consume what the dark side sends.”

Rey shivers. The woman before her is good at heart, the Force tells her that - but she could pass for a darksider any day, judging by the look in her eyes.

“You should know, Rey, that the Knights of Ren answer to Kylo, and to him alone.”

The Knights of Ren are not loyal to the First Order, but to Kylo Ren. _Of course,_ that makes sense, but Rey hadn’t thought it through hard enough. That means that if there’s even a shred of light left in the Force-sensitives in the Knights of Ren, that they might follow Ben - wherever he goes.

“I’ve never met any of the other Knights,” Rey says, with a shake of her head.

“Only recently have we begun returning from obscurity - with Snoke’s death, the Master of the Knights of Ren requires our presence.” Rey nods carefully as Voe speaks, twisting her fingers together with a little bit of excitement and a lot of anxiety. Voe’s face softens after a moment, as she looks at Rey.

“So,” she begins again, as Rey raises an eyebrow in question, “Marriage.”

Nerves shoot through Rey’s limbs and she groans. “I don’t understand -“

“Sure you do,” Voe says, her voice taking on the same lilt it’d had when she went back and forth with Ben. It’s lighter, easier. “A scavenger from nowhere weds the Supreme Leader of the whole-ass galaxy? Because the Force brought you together? Not only is it good publicity, but it’s good politics.”

Rey frowns at her. “But I don’t,” she starts to say.

But oh, _she does._

She _does_ like him.

Flopping back onto the chaise, Rey tosses her arms over her eyes and moans in exasperation. “We kissed. Last night. I was drunk and we were dancing -”

It’s strange to say it out loud, especially to someone she’s just met - but her need for interaction beyond the people of the First Order is manifesting into something fierce, and there’s a twinge in the Force that tells her that she really can trust Voe. And not only that, but she might be a friend.

Voe laughs with a loud peal that makes Rey smile. “Yeah, that much was clear. He’s totally in -“

“He’s _not,”_ Rey stops her before she gets the chance to say it.

“Whatever you say, Rey of Jakku,” Voe sighs. “Now, you should get ready. You don’t want marriage negotiations to take place without the bride, do you?”

“No, absolutely not, a resounding veto to that idea,” Ben is saying, trying _very hard_ not to look as exasperated on the outside as he feels on the inside. “How many more ways can I say ‘no’ in Basic? Anyone have a thesaurus?”

_Did you just make a joke?_

He hears her before he sees her. A moment after the thought has entered his head, Rey comes sweeping into the Council chambers, in a gold and black gown. She looks _regal -_ the gold belt cinches her waist and the gauzy cape trails behind her like wings. But what always gets Ben is the _fucking leg slit. Why_ does she keep wearing dresses with leg slits? It’s as if she wants to torture him.

With every step she takes, her leg peeks out from the slit in the crisp black fabric and he can see her muscles ripple, and _oh no now he’s spiraling._

_Wrap those legs around me._

It’s his own thought, but Rey’s eyes meet his so fast, with such ferocity that he realizes - _fuck,_ she’s heard that.

“What can we do for you, Lady Rey?” General Pryde questions. Rey’s eyes slowly leave his to glance at the General.

“I’ve done some thinking, about this _idea_ you have,” she begins. Ben’s heart gets caught in his throat when she turns her gaze back to his. “I’ll marry you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Voe is a real person!](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Voe)
> 
> [The background of Ben and Voe’s relationship](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_Rise_of_Kylo_Ren_1)
> 
> [Knights of Ren](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Knights_of_Ren)
> 
> [Rey’s Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/401805598004924900/)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Mondaayyyyyy!!!!! Here's another chapter, next one coming soon!

He’s dumbfounded, to say the least.

Dumbfounded, and then a weird sort of _relieved._ Because if he’s absolutely _got_ to get married, he doesn’t think he could stomach it being anyone but her.

Across the table, Pryde _grins,_ a little bit menacingly.

“Excellent,” the General says, and Ben feels an icy finger of anxiety crawl up his spine. “Supreme Leader, do you have any thoughts?”

_I have plenty of fucking thoughts you creepy motherfucker -_

_Ben._ Her voice is stern in his head, and he reluctantly tears his eyes from the older man and once again finds Rey’s gaze. Ben’s heart stutters.

“Thank you, Rey,” Ben says carefully, “For your dedication to the First Order. I’ll take a day to think about this. You’ll have an answer tomorrow morning.”

Oh, he’s pissed her off - he can tell. It’s heavy in the room, her annoyance with his flippancy, and she’s screaming at him through her mind, asking what _exactly he thinks he’s doing, you had better not walk out of this room -_

Ben leaves the room with his breath held, nearly running right into Vera, the Director of Communication - and just the person he wanted to see.

“Supreme Leader,” she greets with a respectful nod.

“Director,” he says, “Contact Leia Organa and send the call through to my office. I have something to discuss with her.”

✹✹✹✹

Rey watches Ben leave the room, suddenly _fuming._ Does he think that her life is something to be thrown away, something that can be toyed with? That the future she’s offering to give away means nothing?

Tears prick the back of her eyes, and it’s even more frustrating that she can’t really pinpoint _why._

“Is there anything else we can do for you, Rey?” General Pryde asks, and Rey can’t stop the way her eyes narrow at him.

“Yes,” she decides, “I would like to contact a friend. How might I do that?”

“Ah,” he says, “The Director of Communications, Vera, can help you with that.”

Rey nods her head, and without excusing herself, she turns and leaves the room with Voe right on her heels. “Who?” Voe asks.

Rey stops short. _Who_ is she planning on contacting, really? Leia? No. How confusing that would be. Finn? He won’t understand this, and if he won’t, then Poe certainly won’t. Rose?

She realizes that she doesn’t even know what she would say if any of them picked up.

_“Hey, I’m going to marry Kylo Ren. I think. Help?”_

With a sigh, Rey turns to Voe and without a word, the woman holds an arm out for her. “What would you do?” Rey asks.

“Me?” she scoffs, as she folds Rey under her arm. “Well, I’ve personally always wanted to punch him in the face, so I may not be the best person to ask. But maybe a Master could help you,” Voe offers, raising an eyebrow as she steers them back towards Rey’s quarters.

“And you think that Luke Skywalker wants to hear about how I might marry the nephew he loathes?”

“Luke doesn’t hate him - he just doesn’t know how else to describe the feeling,” Voe sighs, “But don’t tell him I said that.”

In the end, Rey doesn’t call to Luke. She doesn’t really call to anyone at all, actually - she just decides to sit outside on her balcony and wrap the Force around her, hoping that anyone will answer.

Fifteen minutes pass, and the Force is still stuttering around her, refusing to cooperate. She tries again. And again. And again -

An hour passes, and finally, _finally,_ there’s a voice.

_Luke?_

_Not quite,_ she hears, and if the Force weren’t helping her sit still, she might fall over at the sudden intrusion. It’s not a voice she recognizes. _You’re asking a question you already know the answer to, young Rey._

The man’s voice lilts, traveling through space and time softly and with a little twinge of amusement.

 _I definitely don’t know the answer,_ Rey admits, _I hardly even know the question._

_Ah, but you do._ **_Why_ ** _did you offer to marry Kylo Ren? Answer that._

Rey thinks. _To keep the Resistance safe._

 _Wrong. Try again,_ the voice says, and it’s as if Rey can hear the smile.

_Because I could help bring back balance to the galaxy?_

_Close, but no._

_I thought I was supposed to be answering this question for myself,_ Rey thinks grumpily, but the voice sends a wave of soothing feelings towards her.

_Go on._

_Because I basically have no other options?_

_You always have options, Rey. There is always another path. Think deeper - look inside yourself._

She’s trying. She’s searching every facet of her mind that’s been pushed down and every little pocket of her heart, but she can’t find the answer.

_Is it because I believe I can bring him back to the light?_

_You’re close,_ the voice tells her. _But not there yet. Search your feelings. Search what is between you and Ben - follow the threads of it._

And with that she feels the voice’s signature fade.

It dawns on her as she stares out over the Coruscant skyline that she never asked for his name.

✹✹✹✹

When Leia picks up the other end of the comm, Ben’s mouth suddenly goes dry. He has no clue what to say, no idea why he even _called._

“Darling?” she says, and somehow that makes it even worse.

“Mom,” Ben stutters, feeling like an absolute fool.

“What is it? Is everything alright? Is this - is this an official correspondence?” she questions, and Ben can picture her dainty brow furrowing as she stares either at the speaker or perhaps out a window, like she used to do. “You didn’t call on the First Order’s channel.”

“No,” Ben says, “No, it’s not, I - I’m sorry. It’s nothing. I’ll go.”

“No, wait. Ben,” Leia calls, and suddenly he’s fifteen again, turning away from his mother and unwilling to hear any of what she had to say. There’s so much he would go back and change if he could.

“I’m marrying Rey,” he blurts out, wincing as he says it. He’s never had too much tact when it comes to these things.

For a long minute, Leia is silent on the other end. “Oh,” she says finally. And then, she does something that Ben never saw coming.

Leia Organa starts laughing.

“You’re so unhelpful,” Ben laments, “This is why we never had girl conversations, Mom, and why we’re _never_ going to have them -“

“Oh, come off it,” Leia laughs. “Ben, you don’t need girl advice.”

“No, but I need _Rey_ advice!”

“Rey is a girl, Ben.”

“Yeah, I know that,” Ben mutters, dragging his palm over his face in exasperation.

“I have to admit, this is a _good_ plan, on the First Order’s part. I actually didn’t see this coming, which makes it all the more interesting -“

“Mother.”

“Sorry,” Leia chuckles, and then makes a clicking noise with her tongue that Ben recognizes from his childhood. She’s trying to decide what to say. “What did you really call me for then, Ben? You know Rey, perhaps better than anyone. Don’t avoid her; talk to her. You might not love her now, and she may not love you, but it doesn’t happen overnight. You’ll grow into it together.”

“What makes you think she’ll ever love me?” Ben finds himself asking, in a small voice that sounds awful even to his ears.

“I know that she will,” Leia says softly. “You just have to let her.”

✹✹✹✹

Rey tosses and turns in her bed nearly all night. She had turned in early, hoping that maybe sleep would bring her racing brain some relief, but so far it’s turned out to make it worse. The clock chimes with the new day cycle’s beginning, and Rey is still lying awake in the darkness, groaning to herself.

If she goes to sleep now, she’ll have seven hours before she has to see Ben again.

And yet, something tells her she’ll end up getting far less than that.

That’s _it,_ she can’t do this, she can’t even entertain the _thought,_ there’s no way she’ll be able to go through with it -

_Rey?_

Why oh why does his voice bring her so much _relief?_

 _Ben,_ she sends back flatly.

In the blink of an eye he’s next to her, the Bond dampening all sound and revealing the face of Ben Solo, who is sitting up in bed next to her, looking almost…surprised.

“I called and it opened,” he marvels, as Rey sits up to look at him. She sometimes forgets there’s a student that lives inside him still, that she only ever gets glimpses of - when she walks in on him reading, or writing, or times like now, when he’s perplexed and amazed at their Bond. It makes her smile a little bit.

“Hi,” Rey greets, tucking her knees up to her chest as Ben sits back against the headboard.

“I spoke to my mother today,” he tells her quietly, stern expression softening in the dim light, with the city shining out beyond the window. The shadows trace his face, flicker over his strong jaw and prominent nose and reach across to brush little tendrils of silver over his dark hair. He’s so _striking,_ even when he’s calm like this.

“About?” Rey asks finally, raising an eyebrow. Ben looks down at his hands where they’re folded in his lap.

“This,” he searches for the word. “ _Idea.”_

“Just say it, Ben.”

He narrows his eyes. “I don’t know what to call it,” he admits.

“Marriage,” Rey sighs, scowling at nothing. Silence lingers between them for a long, drawn out moment, both of them lost in their own thoughts and their Force signatures churning the air in the room until goosebumps rise on Rey’s skin with the power of it.

Their physical proximity always has an affect on the Bond - when they’re far apart, reaching for each other across the stars, it’s strong enough to keep them face to face for a while. But the closer they get physically, the more the Bond is a storm, rather than a gentle wave lingering at the back of their minds. But it’s not a frightening storm. It’s more like being wrapped in a cave while a storm rages outside their bodies, outside their minds. Or tumbling under crashing waves, but knowing that you can breathe either way. An eye of a hurricane.

Rey thinks about how the Bond had sighed when they’d kissed, how it had pulled them tight like the arms of a lover and blocked out the violence of everything else. She wonders what their joining would do to it, if he were to touch her, to _feel her -_

“Why did you agree to do it?” Ben asks, a tick in his jaw when Rey looks up and finds him staring at her. She almost smiles, because it’s the same expression of mystified annoyance he had when she’d stepped into the Council room, and he’d once again been thinking about her legs.

“Agree to -“

“Don’t play dumb,” Ben cuts her off, unlacing his hands and instead folding his arms across his bare chest. Rey’s face flushes as she looks at him. “Why did you agree to marry me?”

“I thought _you_ were the one agreeing to marry _me.”_

“I don’t have a choice,” he mutters.

“Well, neither do I,” Rey shoots back. “And you absolutely _do_ have a choice. You’re the Supreme Leader of the Galaxy and if you wanted a wife, you could step outside and find anyone else.”

Suddenly, he’s smirking, a little hint of it turning up the corner of his lip. “I think you severely overestimate my ability to connect to people, Rey,” he states, sighing a little.

“Believe me, I don’t overestimate it at all - you did _so well_ connecting with me,” she says.

“You’re difficult to connect with!”

“I’m really not!”

Then they’re both huffing at each other, looking in opposite directions and avoiding the truth that hangs between them - for two people who know each other so well, they really don’t know each other at all. A shared connection really isn’t enough, Rey figures. She actually knows nothing but what she’s seen of Ben Solo.

“Ben,” she starts, and feels him bristle a little bit, reluctant to answer her. But eventually he tips his head her way. “Do you have a favorite color?

Laughter bubbles up in her chest even after she says it, but it’s already out.

“Do I have a,” Ben sighs, brows knitted together in thought. “I don’t know, actually.”

The way he says it is almost sad, as if he’s lamenting not having thought of such a simple thing before.

“Maybe green,” he says softly, eyes turning up to the ceiling as Rey watches him, warmth blossoming in her chest. “But not bright green. Dark green. Like -“

“The forest?” she guesses, hoping to finish the sentence for him.

“Yeah, like that,” he agrees, finally looking back down at her. “What’s yours?”

“Purple,” Rey answers quickly, the answer ready on her tongue. “Like the -“

“Flowers?” he asks, a twinkle of a joke in his eye. Rey nods. “I like those flowers, too.”

“Favorite food?” Rey asks then, determined to play this question game until she absolutely runs out of ideas. 

“Category? Fruit,” he says, “Yours?”

“Definitely blue milk pancakes.”

It’s Ben’s turn to come up with the question. “Morning or night?”

“Morning,” she says, and he sticks out his tongue.

“Night.”

The conversation devolves into a back and forth of questions, some more difficult to answer than others, and by the time Rey is finding herself actually tired, she knows that Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader of the galaxy, likes sweet coffee and cooking, enjoys reading, and definitely _does not_ like flying with copilots. She learns the story behind the broken nose, too. (It was a fight, unsurprisingly.)

But then: “Last question,” Rey announces, “What’s your biggest fear?”

The air in the room goes cold, like the vacuum of space has sucked out all of the heat, all of the gentleness of the past hour and left them with nothing but ice growing from every surface and across their skin. Suddenly, in Ben’s eyes, Rey sees what she had once feared - the anger and the loneliness that had brought Kylo Ren to her in the first place. It returns to his face in a sweep, as if it had never left. She had chipped away at it so carefully too, over these last few months. She’d broken down the first layer of stone over the wall he keeps himself in, and she’d done the same with her own heart.

And it’s gone, just like that. Back up and darker than before, and Rey feels her whole soul deflate.

 _Just tell me. Let me in._ She practically begs, but he closes their connection with a snap, and Rey is left alone, wondering what type of fear could seize his heart so quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry rey didn't wear any cool dresses in this one lol. BUT i am going to start a spotify playlist for this fic! comment songs that remind you of our space babies and fit the aesthetic! or send them to me on Tumblr @ starwarringavengers ;)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> HELLO EVERYONE! I'm finally ahead of my own self and I should be able to update every day for the next couple days, since I have a few more chapters written! It's torture for me to not throw it up all at once because I'm so excited that you all like it!   
> ***  
> [HERE IS THE PLAYLIST! ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/59qgiFWjTYLMKoeSLZ5MN0?si=i3LVhWDOSWu-1x_HvqWA6w)
> 
> If you have song suggestions, drop them in the comments!  
> Also please remember as we move forward, that Ben Solo is kind of a dick, but he's working through it, hee promises.

Ben wakes up from a not-very-fitful sleep, replaying the last question Rey had asked him over and over in his mind from the monument he opens his eyes, and all through his routine of getting ready. The question stares at him from the depths of black caf (that should have milk, but he has a reputation to keep), in his eyes when he stares into the mirror, and it floats in the air before him when he stares out at Coruscant as the lift takes him up to the top floor.

_What’s your biggest fear?_

“Ah, Supreme Leader,” General Pryde greets the moment Ben has stepped off the lift, scowling. “Excellent, everyone is accounted for. Shall we begin negotiations?”

Ben opens his mouth to say yes, and then his the Force draws up his spine and he spins around.

His eyes land on none other than Voe Ren, walking regally into the room behind Rey. Rey, who is wearing what is somehow both the best and worst gown he’s seen her in yet. It’s a blue and sheer and it just _falls_ over her body like it’s barely there - and he can see every inch of the valley between her breasts, the soft curve of her and every freckle on her pretty skin. He swallows past a lump in his throat and forces himself to regard Voe.

“What are you doing here?” he growls, familiar anger welling up inside of him as he looks at the woman who stands next to Rey, with her big brown eyes and twisted white hair.

“Don’t act so angry,” Voe tuts, “I’m here on Rey’s behalf. As I was assigned to be.”

“Why?” Ben asks.

“Because she needs an advocate - and I don’t see any currently around the table, do you?” Voe asks, and it’s _icy,_ the way she looks at him. “Unless you’d like to promptly lose your attitude.”

He can’t believe this. He’s being _scolded_. Ben glares.

“Fine. Let’s go,” he turns away from both women on his heel, hardly bothering to spare Rey a glance even as her eyes desperately seek his.

Even the first few minutes go poorly. Rey and Voe say no to _everything -_ no to living in Coruscant, no to running an estate, no to the complex lie that the Council has created relating to her backstory - no to all of it.

“I find it very difficult to believe that she is in a position to argue so heavily,” Ben snaps at Pryde, after a half-hour has gone by and neither party has received anything at all.

“I have agency in this,” Rey replies cooly, her eyes narrowed in his direction.

“On the contrary,” General Pryde interrupts, “It is fully within the Supreme Leader’s jurisdiction to continue with this endeavor with _no contract_ at all, or to cease it completely, which may be the wisest course of action.”

Ben’s eyes roam over to Rey’s face, only to gauge her reaction. She raises an eyebrow at him, as if daring him to make a move.

“What are the terms if there is no contract?” Ben asks.

“Lady Rey has no power to say no to anything. She’ll go where you tell her, do as you instruct, and without argument,” Pryde informs them with a sigh. “As there is no estate or other forms of wealth for her family to offer, it’s clearly stated that she would only offer _herself_ to the marriage - whatever that means to you, Supreme Leader.”

Does he want that? Does he _want_ Rey to go down without a fight?

It’s a conflicting, powerful feeling, to have to make the decision. But he’s wasted quite enough time on this already. He’s galavanted around with her for months, with no leeway. If his goal is to remain to turn Rey to the Dark Side, he figures he’ll have to do it by force.

“Very well,” he says, “No contract.”

Kylo Ren has a galaxy to run, and Rey will do it with him, willing or not.

✹✹✹✹

_Bastard,_ she sneers the word over the Bond as she watches him stand from the table, adjusting his cloak before sweeping from the room. _Ben Solo you are -_

_Enough with the ‘Ben’. You refer to me as that again, and we won’t be speaking._

A pang goes through her, sharp like a sword.

How is it that they can change so quickly? How is it that they can go from lying in bed and trading secrets to such iciness?

Rey hates that she has to choke back tears, even as General Pryde starts speaking. Thankfully, Voe is listening better than she is, and is nodding along for her. When they finally leave the room, Voe is rigid with annoyance.

“What a fucking _nerfherder -“_

Rey doesn’t hear the rest of it. She’s too busy listening to the blood rushing in her ears, her only intent taking off the stupid dress she’d put on and finding her way back down to the training arena and taking all of the anger and sadness out on anything at all, but preferably him.

 _I want to train,_ she tells him, hoping to lure him out of whatever hole he’s hidden in now that he’s gone and acted like an ass.

There’s no response for a moment, even though she knows her message has been received. She’s already changed and intent on just taking Voe down with her when his voice floods her head.

 _Fine,_ he growls, _I’ll meet you there._

Rey races down to the arena, gulping in air and relishing in the annoyance that’s flooding her veins like adrenaline. She gets there first and grabs a staff off of the wall, familiarizing herself with the metal in her hands and finding the power in her body. She’s aware of when the door opens and he steps in, the air crackling with electricity as he steps into the arena, shedding outer layers and grabbing a practice saber. Rey continues through her forms quietly, until she feels him come up behind her.

She rounds and just _nearly_ misses his face.

“How could you?” she snaps, the metal of their blades clanging with a force that makes her arms shake. He doesn’t say anything, he just stares at her, ready to face her next blow. “After _you_ said it was a choice - how could you behave like it’s nothing for me to give you my entire future?”

Finally, he quirks an eyebrow, blocking her next swing with both arms. She counters with a twist and gets him right in the back. The huff of air he expels is as close to triumph as she’s going to get.

“Why do you have to make everything a fight?” Ben growls, forcing her back with a wild swing of his own.

“ _Me?”_ she screeches. “Ben Solo, how _dare_ you insinuate that -“

“ _Enough!”_ he bellows, parrying her advance with a few long steps that push her back further, his blade narrowly missing her head as he swings.

“I know what you’re afraid of,” Rey begins, “You’re afraid of your own _reflection._ You’re afraid you can’t live up to everything you want to be, everything you think you should be, and you can’t deal with your own loneliness! You can’t cope so you _have_ to be in control - of the galaxy, of _me,_ but never yourself.”

Ben stalks forward. Rey steps back. He drops the blade. Rey lowers hers.

He stops inches from her face.

“You’re right,” he breathes. Even though they’re in the same room, inches from each other, the Bond opens and nothing else exists - just them. No sound, no arena, no Coruscant. No marriage. Just the Force, shifting around them like a lightning storm.

“You’re right,” he repeats, standing up to full height to look down at her. Rey squares her shoulders in response. “But we’re getting married. You’re going to listen to me and make this easier on everyone.”

Rey bares her teeth. “Like _hell_ I will.”

And she smacks him right in the face with her staff.

His head flies back in an almost comical way, hand coming up to cover his nose, and Rey is positively _relishing_ in his hiss of pain, but then she’s actually a little bit worried when he doesn’t come back at her, doesn’t look at her - he just keeps his gaze tipped up to the ceiling, blinking quickly.

Then he starts _laughing._

It’s like nothing she’s ever heard before. Rey has heard him chuckle, huff, and sometimes make a sound like a hum when he’s amused, but she’s never heard _this._ It’s belly laughter, resounding around the room and wrapping around every corner and covering her with weird goosebumps that she can’t reconcile with. Her anger dissipates a little bit as she watches him remove his hand, wiping at a now-bleeding nose.

“Shit,” she mutters, by way of apology. He only laughs harder.

“I deserved that,” he admits after a moment, using the Force to pull a clean tower over to them and press it to his face.

“Yes, you definitely did,” Rey murmurs, stepping forward to examine his face. It’s not broken, but she definitely fractured it.

His brown eyes blink down at her and she swims in them for a moment, enraptured by the strange mix of emotion and amusement and annoyance that lives in them. Rey slowly lifts her hand to his face and touches his nose with her fingertips, listening to the snap of bone being put back in place as she heals it.

“Thanks,” he says quietly, cleaning off his face with the towel and offering her a quirk of his mouth. Rey keeps glaring, but it’s a little softer, now. Hitting him was kind of cathartic, and she can admit that it was kind of funny, too.

“I have conditions,” Rey states with a sigh, forcing her back to straighten and to look him in the eye while she has him as a captive audience.

“So do I,” he murmurs.

“Me first,” Rey demands, and there’s a flash of annoyance in his eyes, but it’s gone as quick as it came. “I’m not living in Coruscant - I don’t like it here. Not enough to stay.”

“The First Order’s Council headquarters are _here_ on Coruscant - where do you propose we go?” Ben asks, crossing bare arms over his chest, her hit forgotten and now the lilt of negotiation in his voice.

“I don’t care where _you_ go,” Rey clarifies. She catches him wince. “But I’m not living here.”

“Fine,” he concedes after a moment. “What else, oh mighty one?”

She ignores the jab. “I don’t want to talk to politicians. I want to interact with real people.”

“Politicians aren’t real people?” He asks, but there’s a smirk there as he says it. “You can take care of the public events, then.”

Is this all it takes? Getting him alone? Hitting him in the face, and then he’s willing to compromise?

“I’m not taking a last name,” Rey states.

“What last name would you even take?” he questions, flopping down onto the floor and stretching as Rey continues her line of questioning.

“I will avoid telling lies in any way possible,” she tells him.

“Fine, but you have to embellish a little bit - we can’t tell everyone that you were with the Resistance. No one in the First Order is happy about it, and it will cause more trouble than I think either of us is willing to deal with.”

“You’re doing this to keep the Accord from breaking, aren’t you?” Rey asks, “Is that why you agreed to this?”

“I agreed to this, Rey, because people, myself included, are tired of bloodshed. And if what I need to stop more of it from happening is a good public image that includes a wife who is the _Empress of the People,_ then I’m willing to do it.” Ben says, sternly, his jaw set as he looks up at her. Rey narrows her eyes.

“But what do you really gain?”

“A political foothold,” he explains, “Wasn’t it you who shouted at me that life isn’t one big military conquest? There is more to do when war ends to secure a rule, Rey.”

“But you _could_ marry anyone -“

“Why do you keep continuing this line of questioning? Yes, I _could_ marry some high-born idiot who has never set foot on unsteady ground in her life, but what would that do for image? What would that do for the people who’ve already suffered through the war? You think that’s what they want to see?” Ben asks, finally standing. “If it were you, is that what _you_ would want to see?”

Rey avoids his gaze for a moment, staring down at the toe of her boots. “No, it’s not,” she admits finally.

“Then please try to understand why this is happening the way that it is,” Ben sighs, relaxing a little bit for the first time since he entered the training room.

“I _am_ trying,” Rey retorts, digging her boot into the black sand.

“You’ll have to be crowned,” he says after a moment.

“What?”

“Crowned. I’m the Supreme Leader. You’ll be the Empress. Or did you think you’d just flit around on the Outer Rim planets during festivals waving to everyone?”

Rey starts a little. The thought of any literal or metaphorical crown on her head is _terrifying,_ to say the least. “You really do want me to rule with you?”

For a second, Ben looks like he’ll laugh again, but then _Kylo Ren_ smiles, just a twitch of his mouth at the corner, but it sends a shiver that’s _nothing_ like fear up Rey’s spine.

“Regardless of my personal feelings about you, Rey,” he begins, “Power recognizes power. And with power comes fear. Just imagine, for a moment - entertain the thought, of the _power_ we’d possess. What could destroy us?”

✹✹✹✹

Kylo Ren takes Rey’s demands to the Council under the guise of them being his own. He leaves out the last name part - it’s a mess he doesn’t care to get into himself, anyway.

“Everyone must be on the same page about the scavenger’s backstory,” General Hux states, rolling his eyes at Kylo, who shoots him an equally icy look back.

“And everyone _will_ be,” he assures, “Rey and I will flesh out the details and then everyone will be informed.”

“And you propose moving her where, exactly? Supreme Leader, I can’t say it’s a good idea for you to _leave_ Coruscant,” General Pryde states.

“We’re moving headquarters, then,” Ben states. “I’m the Supreme Leader - court goes where I go. Besides, I think Naboo is a plenty nice planet to headquarter an empire.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The "Worst Dress Yet"](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940047540/)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Remember "Who cuts hair in the first order?" 😈  
> The "Sassy Seamstress" trope is totally inspired by diasterism's "Landscape with a Blur of Conquerors", which you should absolutely read.   
> VERY IMPORTANT NOTES AT THE BOTTOM

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No - they can’t know.”

“I thought the _whole point_ of this was that everyone knows that we’re both Jedi -“

“First of all,” Ben huffs, “I’m not a Jedi, and neither technically, are you.”

“Okay, fine, _technically_ not, but don’t you want them to know that we’re Force users?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet? That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does in my head,” Ben tells Rey, as she rolls her eyes so far back in her head he’s pretty sure they’re going to get stuck there. “Now, go over it again.”

She huffs, but sets down her cup of tea and sits up straight, preparing to recite what they’ve been working on for the last hour and a half, sitting in his office.

“Alright,” she begins, “I’m Rey, and I’m from Lah’mu, a remote farming planet in the Outer Rim. I joined the First Order as a pilot -“

“No, you and I met on Lah’mu and I _offered_ you the job as a First Order pilot,” Ben corrects.

“Right, and then somewhere along the way we fell in love,” Rey scoffs, “This is never going to work.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll redo the story. How would you have us meet?” He’s tired of this, and he’s ready to give in to almost anything she wants at this point. Who knew they wouldn’t be able to agree on something as simple as this?

“I think the Force drew you to me. If you want people to believe we have a connection, then let’s use the one we _already have,”_ Rey sighs at him, leaning forward in her chair. “I can be Rey from Lah’mu, fine - but the galaxy knows you’re a Force-user, you can’t hide that. I am too, so let them believe that the Force in me called to you, I don’t know, don’t the Jedi have a theory about soulmates or something we can lean on?”

Ben watches her as she speaks, as her brain rushes through what she’s trying to say, putting it together as she goes. It’s almost cute, the way her face scrunches up in frustration with it all.

“A Dyad,” Ben informs her, and she quirks an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth turning up. “What? I researched it. But there’s no such thing as soulmates.”

“How do you know?” Rey asks, and he wonders if she really cares to hear the answer, or if she’s just lamenting that she’ll never have the chance to figure out if such a concept could be real.

“It’s preposterous,” Ben offers her by way of explanation.

Rey rolls her eyes. ”But isn’t it so much more, I don’t know, _romantic,_ if people believe that you just had no choice in falling in love with me? That it’s some divine intervention?”

_Oh, if only you knew, Rey._

Everything in him wants to scoff at the idea, but it’s so _simple_ and so _good,_ that he has nothing to say. She’s looking at him expectantly, wide eyes lined with a little bit of white.

“That could work,” he says finally, and she gets a smug smile on her face that he’d love to kiss off. “Don’t get too excited. I’m gonna think about it.”

“And talk to your Generals? Because you value their opinions so much,” she’s _teasing_ him now, and he’s going to literally throw his hands up and suggest that he just move to a remote planet and _die_ rather than go through this. But, Rey smiles at him as she plucks a berry off of the plate in front of her, a dark red color that matches the dress she’s wearing today, one with flowers that seem to jump off of the fabric and full, sweeping skirt that makes her look like she’s floating when she had stepped into his office.

There are still traces of the scavenger girl that he knew beneath all the glamour and the dresses and her now-shiny hair, and it lives in her eyes and the expressions she makes. In the wonder every time she sees something new. In the scrunching of her face when she tried fizzy alcohol for the first time. In the way she’d looked at him in the bar.

The thought of seeing those same eyes walking down an aisle towards him causes his heart to seize in his chest, in a way he’s never quite felt before. But then he thinks about glancing over to his right as he sits on a throne and seeing her there, draped in red and black and all _his,_ and the fluttering turns to something a little bit heavier, a little bit more possessive.

Perhaps he’s just having lingering feelings because she’s so _difficult -_ maybe he just likes chasing her because it’s fun, because she never does what he expects. Maybe after a few months, a year of marriage, it will rub off. And he won’t feel so out of control around her, anymore. Like a drug that he needs to get out of his system, that’s what she is.

Once he’s got her on his side, it will level out. He hopes.

“Do I get my own ship?” Rey asks, and it’s then that Ben realizes she’s been reading the contract that they _did_ end up drafting up, awaiting both of their signatures.

“Yes,” he says. _You get anything you want._ “And you get your own guard.”

“I’m fine with Voe,” Rey says, barely glancing up at him as her eyes continue to roam over the page. For once, he actually doesn’t feel like arguing with her. She’ll get extra protection either way, whether she wants it or not.

“Is there anything else you require, _Empress?”_ Ben asks, folding his hands together on top of the desk as he looks at her, eyes lingering on the curve of her pretty collarbone and the thin fingers that grip the page of the contract that, _oh Gods, he has to get a fucking ring, doesn’t he?_

“Yes,” Rey says suddenly, setting down the contract and staring him in the eye. There’s an electricity in her gaze that absolutely enraptures him. “I want your mother at the wedding.”

What a _time_ to be able to catch her off guard.

“She’s already invited.”

✹✹✹✹

In the days that lead up to the wedding, formal announcements are sent out about Rey’s existence and her impending nuptials with none other than Supreme Leader Kylo Ren. The absolute worst part about it is that they make her sit for a holo. They paint her lips a dark shade of red and dress her in a modest, white gown and Ben stands behind her and Rey has to keep from blinking every time the light flashes.

The next day she wakes up and looks out the window, only to see her face staring back at her.

They didn’t use the photo of the two of them looking at the camera, Rey realizes with a start. In the projection, Rey is laughing at something Voe had said, looking a little to the side, as Ben looks down at her.

He almost looks _content,_ as if he likes watching her laugh.

“Cute,” Voe says during breakfast, as they sit on the balcony and once again the photo revolves by on the large screen. Rey rolls her eyes.

“Hardly,” she jokes back.

“You know, I’ve been doing some thinking,” Voe begins, rolling a fruit around in her hands before looking over at Rey. “Perhaps you should get to know some of the lower staff that work for the First Order. The stormtroopers, perhaps?”

The woman’s dark eyes have a particular glint as she bites into the fruit in her hand, wiggling her eyebrows a little at Rey.

A grin spreads across her face.

Twenty minutes later, Rey is skipping down to the lower levels with Voe close behind her, blessedly back in one of her beloved jumpsuits made of a rich, warm black fabric. She’s practically bouncing. By now, everyone knows or has an idea of who she is - and Voe has to put a hand on her shoulder to silently remind her to slow down, and to nod appropriately at everyone who bows their heads to her.

She doesn’t like it one bit.

“Remember,” Voe says quietly, as they slowly begin to wander the hallways, “Be tactful. Don’t give them any reason to believe you’re suspicious.”

Rey nods quietly, stepping a little bit in front of Voe and linking her hands behind her back, her whole body humming with a little bit of excitement at her impending deceit. If perhaps she could get the stormtroopers on the Resistance’s side, then there would be far less work to do. She intends to start from the bottom and work her way to the top, to find a few people who might be loyal enough to her to report back information.

She’s given Voe the job of scoping out such individuals as Rey greets and introduces herself to a few of the stormtroopers who pass.

It doesn’t take long for her to be invited to observe training any time she likes, or to just _stop by, Lady Rey._

“I have a question,” she asks a few of the troopers after they’ve been stopped outside the hangar for a few minutes, engaging in conversation that’s slowly adding information to Rey’s mental article. “I heard an interesting rumor that in the past few years there have been a number of defections - is that true?”

Rey sees the way terror floods both of the officer cadet’s eyes, and she quickly backtracks.

“Don’t worry - I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble. I’d just like to know what’s going on down here, what everyone thinks,” she says softly, offering a smile.

One of the men glances at the other before speaking. “It’s true, Lady Rey. There have been some defections.”

She waits quietly.

“To tell you the truth, morale is pretty low. We’re tired - but not really tired, we will still do our duty -“

Rey holds up a hand to gently quiet him. “You’re tired of war,” she offers, and both men nod. “I understand. We all are. But the fight for what is right never ends.”

“Lady Rey,” Voe calls from behind her, gesturing towards the door. A signal to back her out of the conversation.

“Until next time, gentlemen,” Rey says, offering a soft wave and smile as she turns to follow after Voe.

“For someone who grew up on a desert planet, you sure are pretty good at flirting,” Voe jokes, falling into step next to Rey as they make their way back up.

“I was definitely not flirting,” Rey defends, “I was just talking.”

Voe shakes her head. “Poor Kylo Ren is going to have quite the handful of a wife.”

✹✹✹✹

“I am absolutely not wearing white,” Ben tells the woman who is pricking him with pins as he stands in front of a mirror.

“Why not?” Nova Forin huffs at him, putting a hand on her hip as she regards him with annoyance. For a tiny, graying woman, she’s quite intimidating.

“I don’t wear white,” he tells her.

“Why not?”

“I’m allergic to color.”

Nova throws up her hands in exasperation, growling choice words at him as Ben tries not to laugh. “Impossible,” she mutters, “Your poor wife.”

“She’ll be fine,” Ben tells her, buckling his knees obediently to allow her to pin the cloak to his side.

“Well, her dress has gold, so your jacket will have gold, I hope that’s alright with you, Supreme Leader, because otherwise, you’re going to walk down that aisle naked,” Nova tells him, giving him a very stern look.

“No one would like that,” he offers her a smile.

“What about dark blue?” she moves on quickly, holding up a piece of fabric in her hands to present to him.

“Black,” Ben says again, for the millionth time. “Please.”

“Fine. Dark blue for the reception then, no arguments.”

“Reception?” Ben chokes, turning swiftly to look at the small woman and nearly getting a needle in his eye for it. “You mean I have to change?”

“Yes, now hold still,” Nova instructs, marking a measurement onto her floating datapad before pricking him with yet another pin, this time right in the ribs. “This can’t stay,” she motions to the lightsaber clipped to his belt.

“Can and will,” Ben retorts.

“Will _not,”_ Nova snaps. “You will not wear a weapon at your wedding!”

“It’s staying on.”

“We’ll see about that,” Nova mutters. “And tell your betrothed that you need a haircut.”

“I am _not_ letting her near my hair,” Ben sighs.

Nova clicks her tongue. “Then I’ll subject you to the work of one of my associates -“

“Fine,” Ben says quickly. “Fine, I’ll tell her.”

He’s known Nova Forin for two hours, and already he knows that she and his mother would get along famously.

“What does her dress look like?” he finds himself asking a few minutes later, after they’ve chosen a fabric for the ceremonial cape and he’s agreed to the “dark” blue fabric she suggests for the reception.

Nova starts. “You’ll see her when she walks down the aisle - I’m not telling you a thing.”

Ben sighs, allowing his thoughts to drift towards the list of things that will need his attention in the coming days, as the wedding approaches.

“She will look absolutely _lovely,”_ Nova tells him quietly.

✹✹✹✹

“Nova says I need a haircut,” Ben Solo says when Rey waves her door open for him to come through. Her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline.

“Okay,” Rey says carefully, studying his scowl.

“Rather than subject myself to one of her friends, I was wondering if you could do it,” Ben says, rather sheepishly.

“The Supreme Leader of the galaxy can’t find someone to cut his hair?” Rey asks, placing a hand on her hip. He looks annoyed to have had to ask the question to begin with, but that makes it all the more amusing to her.

“Yes or no,” Ben requests an answer with a sigh.

“What makes you think I can cut hair? Get a droid to do it!” She replies.

“Okay, I didn’t think of that,” Ben huffs, “She suggested it so here I am, I don’t actually know if you can -“

“Sit down,” Rey says finally, interrupting his ramble of thoughts. “Cloak off.”

Surprisingly, Kylo Ren stalks further into the room and sits down in the chair she pulls out. There’s a pair of sheers in her washroom drawer, and at first, she had wondered why, but they’re clearly coming in handy for this weird moment. So, Rey grabs the scissors and a towel and returns to find Ben sitting in the chair, legs outstretched across the floor as if they’re too long to fold at the ninety-degree angle the seating arrangement requires.

She looks at him for a moment. “Maybe you should,” Rey starts, gesturing to his shirt.

With a blink, Ben sits up and peels his shirt from his body. Rey’s skin flushes hot. She remembers exactly how it felt to be pressed against his body when they’d danced at the bar. That moment seems like lifetimes away, and so does their kiss. Now, the next kiss they’ll share will be at an altar.

Ben looks at her expectantly. Rey shakes thoughts of him from her head and focuses on the task at hand. As it turns out, Rey _can_ cut hair. There are no barbers on the Resistance bases, and so everyone had silently appointed her one of three hair-cutters after she’d shaped up Poe’s curls. She’s pretty good at it too, probably due to her careful hands from years of tinkering with machinery.

She gets ready to set to work. He already has annoyingly nice hair - thick and dark with a little bit of curl like Rey wishes hers had. Wasted for years under a helmet, too, but she figures she shouldn’t say that.

Ben sits quietly as she runs her hands through his hair, deciding to start at the top and work her way down. She clips in small sections, paying the most attention to the pieces that frame his face. His long eyelashes flutter softly as he keeps his eyes closed while she works, and he’s the most relaxed she’s ever seen him while they exist quietly together. His Force signature swirls calmly, mixing with her own.

Their two signatures are like twin cores, and they always seem to curl around each other in the Force no matter where they are or what they’re doing.

Rey leaves him for a moment to grab a comb and a sprayer of water, returning to brush any of the clippings that have gotten stuck in the longer strands through. She gets distracted running her hands through the forming curls, soft and dark and spilling through her fingertips like sand. Rey scratches her fingernails along the back of his scalp.

He shudders.

A million thoughts go through her head at once, the prevailing one being something along the lines of: _has it really been so long since you let someone touch you tenderly?_

“Thanks,” he says then, serious.

“You don’t know what it looks like yet,” Rey reminds him, as she calls the hand mirror from her vanity over to them. She holds it up.

“It looks,” Ben starts, running a hand through dark locks. “Really good, actually.”

Rey smiles.

“Rey, do you actually know how to dance?” Ben asks suddenly, as if the thought has seized him with panic. Rey leans back to look at him and shrugs.

“I mean, not really,” she admits. “When would I have had time for proper waltzing lessons?”

Ben lets out an annoyed groan as he stands and shakes his hair out, waving a hand and using the Force to clean the floor of strands of dark hair before putting his shirt back on.

“Come,” he commands then, hand held out to her as he sweeps the other arm to push back the furniture of her sitting-room until it touches the walls. Suddenly, she’s absolutely _panicking._

“You’re going to teach me to dance?” she squeaks, looking at his outstretched hand and shorter curls and long limbs and dark eyes and suddenly feeling _very_ warm.

“Yes,” he says, “Take my hand.”

With a huff, Rey places her hand in his just like she’d done in the Snoke’s throne room that night, only this time his hand feels more familiar. Slowly, he leads her forward into his arms, adjusting her elbow to bend at an angle as he holds his hand out, her palm still in his. His other arm slides around her back - and she’d quite liked her flowery dress today, until this very moment. When there’s nothing separating his skin from hers, Rey thinks she made a grave mistake in choosing the pinkish-purple wildflower printed gown.

His hand spans the entire width of her back.

“Step back with your right foot,” Ben instructs, “Lightly.”

Rey feels him lead her back, stepping forward as she goes back, their bodies still close enough that she can feel the heat of him.

“Now left,” he says, “Now together, right to left.”

It continues on like this for a few minutes, Rey looking down at their feet as they go.

Forward with her left.

Then right.

Then left foot to right foot, and all over again in a square.

She catches on easily enough, and she can feel the step he’ll take before he takes it, so when he begins to shift them in a circle Rey is able to follow well enough not to step on his toes.

“Good, Rey,” Ben says quietly, his voice low in her ear. He brushes her spine with his thumb, a soothing little gesture that just makes goosebumps erupt along her whole body.

He makes it _so easy_ to fall into the steps, to let him pull her a little bit closer after he spins her out of his arms and her dress flies around her. They fall into a rhythm, nonexistent music carrying them through the steps. Rey finds that she quite likes dancing with him, and that she definitely likes the way he holds her when he does, guiding her with a hand on the small of her back, strong enough as if at any moment he could wrap his arm around her and pick her up.

He teaches her a variation of the steps that allows them to move more freely around the room, and suddenly Rey feels like she’s floating - or drunk - as he leads them in circles, an easy smile on his face.

 _Could you learn to love me?_ Rey wonders as she traces the lines of his smile in the light of the city that comes through the window. _Could I love you? Do I already?_

“Now you know how to dance,” Ben says softly, a little breathless.

“Thanks for teaching me,” Rey says, reluctantly letting go of his hand and pressing her palms to her dress, knowing that she’s blushing so hard she must look like a desert sun.

“Hopefully your wedding dress isn’t much larger than that, otherwise _I’ll_ be the one tripping,” Ben mutters. Rey’s laughter fills the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Rey's Red Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/723601865108811545/)
> 
> [Was I inspired by this photoshoot? Perhaps.](https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ACYBGNQpzegcuIa4vBMuqGdmbcc4q1DU8w:1580152399854&q=adam+driver+and+daisy+ridley+photo&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiVu--zvqTnAhVBmlkKHYXyCkMQ7Al6BAgKEB0&biw=1440&bih=821#imgdii=KT4w-UDWHdtFyM:&imgrc=fKEWbAKht0reJM:)
> 
> [Rey's Black Jumpsuit](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/43628690128146803/)
> 
> [The Purple Flower Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/659988520378517422/)
> 
> [THE PLAYLIST!!!!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/59qgiFWjTYLMKoeSLZ5MN0?si=z6tsOTsiQaa5SZDoD7HKyQ)
> 
> MY VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION IS...In this story, is Ben a virgin? I have two ideas, but I want to know your leanings. Drop me a comment or visit me on [TUMBLR!](https://starwarringavengers.tumblr.com/)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaack!!!! This fucking wedding is gonna take like, five chapters. Sorry not sorry. Also, the tradition of shaving the groom before the wedding comes from Greece, but it's usually the best man who shaves the groom (don't ask me why, it's a symbol of trust) but I changed it to be the bride. Why? Because Rey and Ben deserve a sexy moment ;) Plus, I was inspired by Beardo Ren from SNL. ENJOY!!!

“That is the silliest tradition I have ever heard,” Rey says as she sits across from Ben at dinner, the night before their wedding. What was an innocent question about why he wasn’t clean-shaven, as usual, turned into Rey being informed of an old Core World wedding tradition that he’d offered up.

“I’m not saying I want you anywhere near my throat with a straight razor either,” Ben huffs, “I’m just giving you the option.”

The option on the table is easily one of the strangest wedding traditions Rey has ever heard - a week leading up to the wedding, the groom doesn’t shave so that the morning of, his bride-to-be would assist in the chore. It’s supposed to be romantic and intimate, Rey figures, but she can’t wrap her head around it very well. It’s almost _too_ intimate.

She looks at him over the candlelight, watching the flickering flame cast shadows on the angles of his face. “Why is it a tradition?”

Ben shrugs. “I have no idea where it comes from. Just one of those things - like not seeing the bride in her dress before she comes down the aisle.”

“You could just _not_ shave,” Rey offers, a little shyly.

“Like it?” he jokes, squinting at her in a form of half laughter.

“Kinda,” Rey admits.

“Ah, lovebirds,” Voe greets, emerging into the room with a box nearly half the size of her body. “Deliveries from Nova Forin.”

“I already have my dress,” Rey informs her, confused.

“This is definitely not your dress,” Voe sighs, looking down at the box with absolute mirth. Rey’s heart jumps to her throat. “So, if you’re quite done with dessert, Kylo Ren, Rey and I need to have a chat.”

_Oh no oh on oh no -_

“Give us one moment,” Ben tells Voe, and it looks like he’s quietly pleading with her to leave the room, as if he knows that whatever is in that box will cause Rey to go into some sort of shock.

“Guess I’ll drop these off,” Voe says with a grin, leaving as quickly as she came. Rey looks at Ben in confusion, awaiting an explanation for his sending Voe away.

Ben, who downs the rest of the wine he’d been drinking in one sip and stands, staring for a moment out the window of the room, at the bright lights of the city. Then, he turns towards her with sharp purpose, and in a few short steps crosses the room.

“It occurred to me,” Ben begins, clearing his throat in something like nervousness, “That I never gave you a ring.”

Rey looks up at him as he comes to stand before her. “A ring?” her voice comes out in an annoying squeak that makes her wince. Around them, the Force is jilting strangely - they’re both nervous and unsure and his signature contains traces of something she can’t place.

Then, Rey is watching with wide eyes as Ben slowly sinks to one knee before where she sits, holding his hand out for hers. She doesn’t think twice before placing her fingertips in his. Dark eyes search her face.

 _So beautiful,_ there are whispers in her mind that she thinks are coming from him, _Why am I so nervous?_

From his pocket, Ben produces a small round sphere, dark metal, that he uses the Force to suspend in midair before her.

The wedding has been creeping up on her for days now, but it hasn’t felt totally real. Not until this moment, with Ben Solo kneeling before her, looking at her with wide eyes and a little bit of uncertainty. She’s seized with nerves, her lips pressed together and fingers trembling and _oh Gods, she’s going to_ ** _marry_** _this man -_

Ben twists his hand and the sphere opens, and the ring catches the light - and Rey can’t breathe for an entirely different reason.

The piece of jewelry that falls in her palm is the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

The center stone is black, but surrounding it are ur-diamonds, arranged in a striking way around the teardrop-shaped gem. Gold holds it together. It looks like the diamonds are erupting from the center stone, like the burst from a sun.

For a moment, he studies her face, eyes shifting across her expression. She doesn’t know what to say, and she’s so grateful when he finally moves and picks the ring up from her open palm, taking her hand again and sliding it onto the fourth finger of her left hand. Once the stone is fit snuggly on her knuckle, she looks up to see him smiling, just a little bit.

“Thank you,” Rey breathes, their fingers lacing together. He brings the back of her hand to his mouth and his lips just graze her skin, and it feels like warmth shooting up her whole arm.

“Til tomorrow, Rey,” he says, rising gracefully from his perch before her and leaning in, pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead. Rey’s hands move of their own accord and she reaches up, trapping the fabric of his cowl in her fingers. Ben stops, looking down at her, his lips parted.

She leans up and kisses him.

It’s soft, not demanding, just a quiet _thank you_ and a _see you later,_ things that won’t come out of her throat so instead, she has to find another way to say them. He kisses her back, one large hand coming up to cup her face, tangling in the loose strands of hair behind her head. Heat blossoms between them, and the Bond _sighs,_ like it’s asking them to get closer and closer -

And then the kiss ends, and Ben flashes her a barely-there smile before stalking from the room. Voe takes his place not a few moments later, as Rey is still sat still in her chair, her fingertips pressed to her lips, tingling where they’d touched his.

“How’s it going, Your Majesty?” Voe asks, leaning against the doorway and raising an eyebrow at Rey, who is still at a loss for words. “Was the Supreme Leader… _blushing?”_

Rey bursts out in a nervous giggle, finally standing from her chair and pressing her hand to her forehead. “What did Nova send?” she asks, trying to steer Voe away from the conversation at hand. The woman smirks.

“Wait until you see.”

✹✹✹✹

It’s worse than she imagined. Oh, it’s _so much worse._ The things that fall from the box are sheer and lacy and red and black and white and Rey has never blushed so hard in her _life._

“Sit down,” Voe instructs, pointing to the bed. Rey reluctantly takes a seat in front of the offending garments and looks expectantly up at her. “Have you ever had sex?”

“No,” Rey admits, because there’s no use in lying to this woman, she’s looking _right_ through her - any lie that comes out of her mouth Voe will hear, and she’ll never hear the end of it.

“Do you know how sex works?”

Rey narrows her eyes.

“Just checking,” Voe states, hands held up in a gesture of surrender. “Now that we have the obvious out of the way, I’m here - ask anything.”

Rey is going to positively _burst._ She has so many questions she doesn’t even know where to begin. Back on the Resistance bases, she’d heard stories and gotten the details of her friends’ trysts, but how could she know what to believe? The only form of the infamous talk that she’s had is the one she received from the First Order doctor a few days ago, when they’d given her some sort of shot intended to ensure there would be no surprise little Supreme Jedi running around. Other than that, she’s spent most of her life in isolation, and the only person she counted on to bring her any sort of pleasure was herself.

Of course, that’s Voe’s next, _extremely embarrassing_ question. “That’s good!” Voe insists, upon learning that yes, she _has_ learned how to masturbate. “You’re already halfway there!”

“How?”

“Just tell him what you like,” she shrugs.

“Do you really think that he’ll -“

“Want to be intimate with you? Yes,” Voe says seriously. “Honestly, Rey, can you not read between the lines?”

Rey looks down at the lace in her hands, twisting the gauzy back fabric in her fingers as she thinks. “Because I’ll be his wife or because he likes -“

“You? Because he likes you?” Voe interrupts her question. Rey blushes. “I think you’ll find he likes you _much_ more than he lets on.”

Silence stretches between the two women as Rey stares at everywhere but Voe’s eyes.

“Voe,” Rey sighs finally, “Can you tell me about him? When you knew him?”

Voe looks at her with a twinge of mirth in her smile. “What do you want to know?”

“What was he like?”

Voe thinks for a moment. “He was quiet, as a kid. Always just a little bit troubled. But also, _trouble,_ if you know what I mean. He actually never sat down. Used to always be off somewhere, missing lessons and meditations and tinkering with things, reading, always learning - he’s still the same, in some ways. Sometimes, the things he says - you must hear them more than me - the jokes and the sarcasm,” She sighs a little bit. “There are still parts of him that live, Rey. The good parts.”

“Do you believe that?” Rey asks, the spark of hope that’s been living in her chest glowing into an ember.

“I do,” she nods, “You should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

Voe winks at her as she stands from her perch on the bed next to Rey.

“By the way,” she says on her way out, “He told you about the Core World tradition?“

“He told me,” Rey nods.

“Do it,” Voe tells her. “Trust me.”

✹✹✹✹

They both dream that night. Rey falls asleep thinking about what the day will bring, and just like the time she fell asleep in the bath, she sucks Ben into her dream without knowing.

It’s not the forest, this time. This time, they’re inside, and Rey’s skin is sliding over soft, silky sheets and water is rushing outside the open windows. Her hands are in his hair and _why does she always have dreams like this?,_ his lips are on her feverish skin, down the valley of her breasts and she feels small in his hands, she feels _loved._

He’s whispering things to her that she’s not sure she could ever really think of on her own, and she can’t breathe, can hardly _think -_

_Is this how you dream of us, Rey?_

She sits up in bed with a gasp.

The night passes slowly, after that.

✹✹✹✹

Ben Solo hardly sleeps the night before his wedding. How could he, when every time he closes his eyes he gets pulled back into Rey’s dreams? By the time the sun is rising in the Coruscant sky his window is displaying the temperature, promising a moderate day.

“Supreme Leader,” one of the attendants for the day calls through the comm. “Breakfast is ready, and your itinerary is on the table.”

Of course there’s an itinerary.

Breakfast is a cup of caf and toast, because he doesn’t have the stomach for much else. The shower helps him feel a little more awake.

He’s staring in the mirror, razor in hand, when he feels Rey’s Force signature outside the door. It opens for her without him saying a word. She sweeps inside the room in a flowing white robe, and she’s like a _vision._ Her dark hair hasn’t been pinned yet and her face is free of cosmetics and if Ben had been speaking, he sure he would’ve lost words.

“Good morning,” Rey greets, stepping into the bathroom where he stands, shirtless, shaving cream already on his face. “Starting without me?”

It’s a joke, but he can see the nervousness in her eyes. So he smiles.

“Never,” he tells her, flipping the razor around in his hand and offering the blade to her. She takes it with a delicate touch, the ring he’d given her glittering on her finger as she turns the sharp object around.

“Sit,” she says quietly, and so he does. He takes a seat on the chair near the sink, leaving Rey enough room to work. Just like when she’d done his hair, she’s gentle when she tips his jaw to the side and brushes his waves back, studying him closely. She frowns after a moment, seeming to realize that she’s not quite able to get close enough to him. Unthinking, Ben takes her hand and pulls her in, leading her to perch over his lap.

Now, she’s closer. Very much closer.

If she has any thoughts about it, she doesn’t say so - but she does flutter her eyelashes and blush three shades darker than normal. Rey lifts her hands and with her fingertips tilts his chin up and carefully begins to run the blade down his face. He’s left studying every freckle and scar and mark on her face as she leans this close, his hands still wrapped around her hips.

“Where’d you get the scar on your eyebrow?” he asks, reaching up a hand to smooth his thumb over her quirked brow.

She almost smiles. “I have no idea,” Rey admits, with a little shake of her head that moves her hair behind her shoulder, sending a waft of her flowery scent falling over him. “I don’t remember most of the scars I have.”

It’s a fair response, because he’s pretty sure he doesn’t remember most of his either, except for the one that she’d given him. He’s heard her wonder before, why he hasn’t gotten rid of it. He’s not quite ready to tell her it’s because he likes it - and because it’s from her. A reminder every day in the mirror of her strength.

Rey’s brow is furrowed a little bit as she works around his jaw, precise and gentle - gentler than he would have ever thought she could be, and it continues to surprise him. It’s nice though, to feel her this calm. The Bond is laying around them, dormant, like a sleeping cat, as Ben runs his thumbs absently along the bare skin of her leg, exposed by the slit in her pretty white robe. Then she leans back to run the razor under the rushing water, and Ben almost gasps.

Rey shifts on his lap and her hips tilt forward as she bends - Ben can’t help the desperate sound that tears from his throat.

“Oh, sorry!” Rey squeaks, her face flushing all the way down to her chest and disappearing tantalizingly beneath white fabric. “Do you want me to,” she starts to say, as their eyes finally meet.

Ben shakes his head.

“Stay - if you want,” he tells her, gripping her thighs a little tighter for emphasis. Rey gives him a shy smile as she brings the warm cloth up onto his face, wiping away the excess shaving cream before patting his skin dry with the towel that hangs around his neck. It’s so tender and domestic and she’s smiling so sweetly -

“I’m nervous,” Rey says, in a rush of breath. Ben looks up to find her avoiding his gaze, tracing her fingertips along his jaw.

“I am too,” he tells her softly, pulling her a little closer. A smile flits across her face as she lets him nuzzle the skin under her jaw, press a soft kiss to her collarbone. “What do you do when you’re nervous?”

Rey makes a face as she leans back and tosses the towel away, pouring aftershave into her palms. It’s embarrassing how much he wants to moan when she smoothes it onto his face.

“I don’t know,” she says finally, “Usually something outside. Something physical.”

Ben hums, half in response to her answer and half because she’s still touching him, her hands falling to press her fingers into the muscles of his neck. He’s trying desperately to think of anything other than how her robe has fallen off her shoulder to reveal just a little bit of tanned skin.

“I like this,” he tells her, sliding his fingertip underneath the hem of one side of the robe. Rey makes a face.

“It’s about the tamest thing that Nova sent,” she huffs, and oh, now he’s got _that_ visual -

Ben drops his head back with a groan as he feels his body twitch under another motion of her hips. Rey doesn’t say anything this time, she just stares at him with wide eyes.

_Voe was…right? He wants me? Or is this normal, oh Gods, I have_ **_no_ ** _idea what I’m doing -_

“Stop thinking so loud, Rey,” Ben pleads, knowing that she wouldn’t want to be projecting thoughts like that onto him if she knew she was doing it.

“Ben.”

His name is a sigh on her lips, tight in her throat, as if it’s a prelude to something else. He opens his eyes to look at her.

“What are you thinking?” she asks then, green eyes fluttering as she looks at him. He knows what _she’s_ thinking - and it’s about dreams and dark bars and their kiss last night.

“Do you want to know?” Ben asks, his own voice barely forcing it’s way through nerves and arousal. Rey nods, her lips parted and hair falling to frame her face in a way that reminds him of a halo.

He’s thinking of her dreams - thinking of her, laid back on soft sheets and his hands all over. He’s thinking of the training arena, when she’d broken his nose. He’s thinking of how _alluring_ she looks when she’s fighting, when the fierceness in her eyes is directed at him and somehow he can never decide if he’s angry with her or just painfully turned on. He’s thinking about how it felt to move against her, how they kiss, how much he _wants_ her.

“I’d really like to touch you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Rey’s Ring!](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/602004675177181278/) I picked this because it reminds me of the original posters you know where the beams are coming from Luke’s lightsaber? You feel me?
> 
> [Rey’s Robe, which is technically a dress but makes sense to me, so.](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940052359/)
> 
> Please note that I'll probably update twice today because I feel a little bad leaving it on such a short chapter/cliffhanger.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're back with the first part of the wedding friends!!!   
> Overwhelming responses told me that Ben is a virgin, but it's worth it to note that Ben Solo is a very studious individual, and he doesn't like being bad at things. ;)   
> BEWARE that there are sexy times ahead.

Rey’s brain short-circuits.

He’d like to, _what?_

Oh, she’s going to lose _all_ forms of self-control if he continues to look at her that way, with beautiful dark eyes and parted lips and their minds trading thoughts through the Bond without their express permission.

 _For days,_ he thinks, _I just want to watch you -_

Oh, Maker, she’s going to _die._

The memory of his lips lingers, the daydreams and the night dreams and the traitorous, treacherous thoughts she’s been having about him all bubbling up to the surface. The way she’d woken up just this morning, feverish and a little shaky from dreaming about him, about that mouth that’s so close to hers again.

“You don’t want -“ she starts to say, but he quickly shakes his head.

“Nothing. I don’t want anything. I just want to make you feel good,” his voice sounds strained, like he’s pleading with her. “Can I? Please?”

 _Don’t be scared of me,_ he thinks. _Let me show you that I won’t hurt you._

Perhaps it’s a selfish thing, for him to feel like he needs to prove to himself and to her that he’s capable of bringing more than just pain. But Rey doesn’t need to tell him at this moment that she’s already sure of that - she knows just by the way he’d held her in his arms as they danced, how he’d kissed her last night, and the way he’d carefully placed the glittering ring on her finger.

Rey feels her entire body flush.

“Yes,” she tells him finally, meeting his dark eyes and hoping that he sees that she _does_ want this. She _does_ want him. A growl tears from his throat and he reaches up, fisting a hand into her hair to bring her face down to his.

The first touch of their lips feels transcendent - he kisses her like he can’t breathe, but it’s calculated. It’s warm and languid and Rey finds her hips moving against him of their own accord, her fingers wrapped around his bare biceps, touch tracing the scar that runs across his collarbone.

The Force coils around them, a snake ready to lunge, waiting for them to come closer together before it strikes. Anticipation and desperation and exquisite heat mixing, falling over the room and suddenly Rey can hardly breathe, even as he leads her to tip her head back and presses his mouth to her throat, tracing the line of her jaw with his tongue in a way that makes Rey whine.

 _I like when you do that,_ Rey sends through their Bond when he bares his teeth to nip at the tender spot below her ear.

He doesn’t seem to care to deny her. He does it again, his other hand drawing the sleeve of her gauzy robe down to bare more of her shoulder, mouth moving down to latch onto the curve of her collarbone and biting. Rey lets out a giggle, light in her chest and Ben’s arms tighten around her as he continues his exploration of her skin with his mouth. His very, _very_ pretty mouth.

 _This is all I’m going to be able to think about walking down the aisle,_ Rey realizes. It’s more to herself than him, but _oh,_ does she feel what it does to him.

Eyes fluttering back open, Rey looks down and watches as Ben flicks his eyes up in question, long fingers poised at the sleeve of her robe to pull it further down. Heart in her throat, Rey pulls away from him far enough to do it herself, baring more of her skin as both sleeves fall to the crooks of her elbows, leaving her chest exposed to the cold air and to his roaming eyes. She hardly has a moment to be self-conscious about anything, because he wastes no time leaning in and marking a trail of kisses down the valley of her breasts, _just like he’d done in her dream._ The moment his mouth wraps around an already pert nipple Rey finds her back arching and her hips grinding and _oh, how is it that this feels so good?_

His mouth is warm and soft and having his tongue in her mouth was one thing, but against her skin is entirely another, and they hardly have time to explore all the ways she’d like to have his mouth on her. Rey grabs at his hair then and forces their lips back together.

“Want you to touch me, please,” she whispers finally, the words practically stuck in her throat as she speaks them shyly, taking his hand from where he’s cupped her breast to fit in his palm and guiding his touch down her body. She can feel how hot she is, even though he hasn’t touched her. It’s becoming unbearable, the need for friction between her legs.

With his hands on her hips, Ben leads her to shift over his lap and part her legs further before his hand seeks out the space that lies between, and she whimpers.

His thoughts become loud around her, like a storm. He’s thinking of _her_ thinking about _this,_ about being flushed with the memory as she walks down the aisle - Rey feels the twinge of pride at the thought, and it only swells when he brushes his fingers along her, the pad of his middle finger flicking at her clit over the silk of her underwear.

She nearly flies away from him, the shooting tingle of pleasure going up her whole spine and making its way back down to her toes.

“I’ve barely touched you,” he jokes, but Rey can hear the strain, and she can feel when he draws his arm tighter, more possessively around her waist.

“I’d really like you to, Solo,” Rey grits out.

 _Ah,_ he thinks, _There’s my little scavenger._

She hears the thought and smiles against his lips. Rey holds her breath when he slides a finger under the hem of the silk she wears and the back of his knuckle _just_ grazes her core, and Rey is certain now that she is going to completely disintegrate in his arms.

_Maker, Rey, you’re so -_

_Stop praying and touch me, please._

She’s _so_ impatient to feel his hands _on_ her and her whole body is screaming for his touch, anticipating the moment when he’ll _actually touch her -_

_Who am I to deny my very desperate fiancee?_

She’s going to positively _kill_ him if he makes another joke -

Ben’s hand twists and in a slow, controlled movement he curls his finger inside her, and Rey is taken aback by how her whole body tightens, draws him in and begs for more friction. Time slows down as Rey’s eyes find his, hypnotized by the darkness and the hazy blanket of lust that their Bond wraps around them. He finds the soft spot inside her too easily, crooking his finger and Rey can’t do _anything_ but tangle her hands in his hair and hold onto him as her body reacts to his touch in ways she didn’t know were possible. He slides another finger inside her and there’s the briefest, most exquisite type of stretch that gives way to pleasure that sings through her, loud and sweet. He looks at her like he’s absolutely _amazed,_ as if even _he_ didn’t know he could do this.

Ben presses against the spot he’s found, the one that Rey can never seem to reach, and she falls into him with a cry, clutching him close as her legs shake and his thumb circles the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs and -

“Good girl,” it falls from his lips, dark and dripping with arousal and desire and Rey ceases to breathe. “Look at me.”

So she does.

But then her eyes roll back as he curls his fingers and _that’s exactly what I wanted, Rey, exactly how I wanted you -_ his name falls from her lips.

Her entire body tenses as she comes again, before she turns to liquid in his arms and he catches her, gently and carefully removing his hand and wrapping his arms around her waist as hers circle his neck and she breathes in the scent of aftershave and metal and something dark and smooth - him. He’s nearly as breathless as she is, his free hand running up and down her spine as both of their heartbeats begin to slow, and the air around them untangles a little bit, as if the Force is reminding them to breathe.

Ben presses a kiss to her temple, lips lingering and soft. All her nerves seem to slink away like shadows, now that her body is momentarily sated and looser and she’s in his arms.

“Lady Rey? Are you there? Nova is here,” Voe’s voice comes through communique device installed within the walls of the room and Rey practically jumps. Ben begins to chuckle, dark and low and Rey can feel it where she’s still draped across his chest.

“I suppose I’ll see you at the altar, _cyar’ika.”_

✹✹✹✹

Rey makes her way back to her room in an absolute _daze._

A product, perhaps, of the mind-blowing orgasm she’s just experienced - or perhaps it’s just the way he’d said _cyar’ika._

Rey has picked up plenty of different languages, both from her time at the Niima Outpost and on the Resistance bases and now in the First Order - the Force helps her understand languages she’s never really heard. She plucks the meaning of words from the brains of sentient (and sometimes non-sentient) beings without even knowing it.

So, she knows a decent amount of Mando’a - one of her favorites, if she’s honest.

She knows what _cyar’ika_ means.

_Sweetheart. Darling. Beloved._

“Rey?” Voe raises an eyebrow at her as she realizes she’s reached the door to her bedroom. The knight regards her passively for a moment, and then abruptly her expression changes - Voe crosses her arms over her chest, and her eyes slant in amusement. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Rey breathes, but it comes out strange even to her own ears. “But, I think I do have some questions for you.”

Voe smiles. “You can ask them while you get ready.”

Getting ready is a _much_ more involved process than Rey thought it would be. Nova Forin, Voe, and a team of Nova’s stylist friends appear in her room, and Rey hardly moves for three very long hours while they pin her hair, fix her nails, and line her eyes. They’ve left her hair tousled enough that it doesn’t feel like her scalp is going to come off, thankfully - little tendrils of dark curls frame her face and a knot at the back of her head that’s artfully messy. Rey quickly says no to the fake eyelashes that Nova presents her with because, _fake eyelashes?_ She wants to be able to see, thanks very much.

Then comes time for the dress.

Rey had seen it when it was unfinished, the beautiful fabric hanging off her limbs at strange angles as Nova had poked and prodded and sewn pieces together. But seeing it finished, draped on her body - it looks entirely different.

First of all, it’s _massive._ Double the width of her hips on either side and so sparkly that it’s nearly blinding. The thing is weighed down with more crystals than she’s ever seen in her life, and for a moment, moving seems impossible.

“Use the Force,” Voe mouthes at her in the mirror, and Rey grins as she realizes that she can, indeed, lighten the dress and keep it away from her legs with the Force. Thank the Maker.

Nova’s handiwork is beautiful, and the dress’s beading follows the contours of her body to accentuate her small waist and the crystals laying just right, so that her chest is made to look a little fuller. It’s not quite the dipping neckline that most of the gowns in her closet are - surprisingly, it airs more on the side of modesty, but there’s still a great deal of her skin on display, from where the sleeves begin just below the angles of her shoulders to the space right between her breasts, where an extra little diamond has been set. Behind her, the fabric and gems gather into a slope that leaves the best parts of her back uncovered, the freckles that dot her skin decorated with little gold foils. The skirt tapers from her waist and spills out onto the floor as soft as clouds, despite the beadwork. All of it inlaid with white and silvery-gold gems that sparkle iridescent when she turns, arranged in beautiful constellations that rival everything she’s ever seen through a viewport. The gold is almost unnoticeable - little foils of it here and there along her bodice and skirt that make it glow like stars when it catches the light. The train might as well be a mile long and the veil tumbles down in the same way, more diamonds and gems and gauzy fabric and gold.

When she looks at herself in the mirror, Rey feels for a moment like she’s going to throw up.

She’s never seen herself look more beautiful.

Despite that thought, the mood she’d carried in from her little tryst with Ben slowly wears away to roiling nerves.

 _Don’t be afraid,_ his voice wraps around her conscience, and Rey shuts her eyes, luxuriating in the momentary peace that the sound brings her. _I feel it too._

✹✹✹✹

Rey has been staring out of a window, up at the stars, her whole life. Now, the rest of her life is waiting for her at the end of a very long aisle, striking and handsome and nothing like she has ever expected.

She expected a father, a mother, a family - and she has one, she supposes - just not the one she thought she’d have.

Rey doesn’t trip - thank the _Maker_ she doesn’t trip. The skirt threatens her at every turn, with every step it’s in her way. There’s too much around her to properly focus on using the Force just for the dress. She can feel everyone’s eyes on her as she passes, and what’s more, is that she can feel the multitude of Force signatures that fill the room.

There’s skepticism, wonder - even jealousy.

Rey feels her friend’s worry and their sadness, but she also feels their little twinges of excitement when she comes into view. She can feel that Finn is trying to project some sort of reassurance onto her. He even throws her a thumbs up.

Rey passes Leia, and she feels her pride. It’s pure.

 _I’m glad it’s you,_ floats into Rey’s head, Leia’s voice filling the space and slicing through all of her worries for a brief moment. She finds herself smiling, finally, as she reaches the end of the aisle, where Voe holds a hand out for the massive bouquet of small white flowers and night bloomers (she’d teared up a little when she saw them) and strands of diamonds, and Rey is all too happy to pass it over.

She looks at him and now she really _is_ blushing, because he’s smirking just a little and it’s so reminiscent of how he’d looked at her as she’d fallen apart before him, in his arms this morning, and _wow_ her legs feel like jelly. 

Rey has to lift the skirts of her dress to climbs the stone steps. From her peripheral, Rey sees Ben hold out his hand to her, and she slips her fingertips into his palm without a second thought.

✹✹✹✹

_Her freckles have been decorated with little flecks of gold - subtle and soft against already golden skin. That she looks like a starry sky, is his very first thought._

✹✹✹✹

_Nova forced a product into his hair that makes it curl at the ends. He looks soft; regal. The thin golden crown that very_ **_subtly_ ** _mimics her headpiece was a nice touch, she thinks._

✹✹✹✹

_He’s dreaming. She’s not real. The crystals in the bodice of her dress look like they’re embedded into her skin. In fact, he’s half-convinced that they really are. The closer she gets, the more striking she appears. She is a night sky, stars against the black expanse of space - and he’s floating._

✹✹✹✹

_Follow the threads, the voice had told her. She hadn’t understood. But she thinks that as she climbs the steps to meet Ben, to put her hand in his, a thread really is pulling her towards him. Around them, the Force sighs, as if to say,_ **_I’ve been waiting for you._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Rey's Hair](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/603904631255587665/)
> 
> [Dress Number One (Imagine more gold.)](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/555983516497885877/) Yes, there are multiple, because I can't make up my mind. 
> 
> By the way...who officiates a wedding in the First Order? Any ideas?


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well friends, part two of the wedding is HERE and there are VOWS! (A mishmash of the actual mandalorian vows, my imagination, and a Game of Thrones reference ;)   
> ENJOY!!!  
> Please also note that this will likely be more than 20 chapters because I have NO self-control.

When Ben was young, he remembers hearing stories about his mother and father’s wedding. It was small, quiet, and on a planet surrounded by trees and flowers and life - so unlike his, in this moment.

In his head, he hears Han Solo’s voice.

_“She was the most beautiful thing I ever saw. And I couldn’t really see much else. You’ll get it, when you find someone. She’ll come down that aisle and the rest of the world will just - poof.”_

The memory hits him with the weight of boulders, and for a moment he feels a sharp pain in the center of his chest that takes his breath away. But then Leia is there, in the audience, and projecting onto him what he hasn’t felt so purely in years - _love._

Rey slides her hand into his with no second thought, no question. Her fingertips grasp his and it feels like fire, as their skin touches. The world drops away -

And their Bond opens.

✹✹✹✹

Rey hears herself gasp when they touch. Threads of the Force erupt between them, fissuring like cracking glass, fractals of sunlight - it’s so beautiful that it takes her breath away.

It shimmers around them.

Captain Phasma starts to speak, but Rey barely hears. Instead of her usual silver armor, Phasma wears a black pantsuit that Rey personally thinks she looks very nice in. And she was glad to hear that someone she knew would marry them. Apparently, the First Order hadn’t necessarily considered who might officiate ceremonies that are so important. And so, they’d chosen Phasma, who by law as Captain, Judge of Justice (the worst title, if you ask Rey), can perform such a legally binding ceremony. Marriages in the galaxy ruled by the First Order are as transactional as anything else, and when she’d read over the words that would be said, she had actually wrinkled her nose.

“There’s absolutely nothing about love in here,” she’d said, as Ben sat across from her at breakfast, flipping through reports. He’d looked up with a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t write it,” he’d said, and they hadn’t revisited the topic since. But, Rey had chosen their vows. And as it turns out, the Jedi _did_ have marriage vows.

While they couldn’t marry, they could officiate ceremonies, and Rey had dug through old holobooks for hours looking for any little slivers of information on the Jedi that hadn’t been destroyed during the first war. For some reason, the Empire had deemed the history book that she’d found not too radical, and it had contained old texts taken from transcripts of weddings officiated even before Anakin Skywalker’s time.

And they’d just _fit._

It was time for them to exchange said vows, and Rey can’t stop her hands from trembling as she places them both in his. In the bright sunlight of Coruscant, Ben’s eyes look more golden than brown.

Together, they speak.

✹✹✹✹

_“We are one whether together or apart, across galaxies and between every star. Never will you be alone - in fight or in trial; before light and before darkness; through the night until the rising sun - I stand with you. My last breath will speak my love to you. I am yours and you are mine, from this day until the end of my days.”_

✹✹✹✹

He slides a thin golden band inlaid with black stones onto her finger, and it fits snuggly against the beautiful ring he’d given her. Rey’s hands shake when she takes his hand and does the same, the strip of gold between the igneous metal, mined from the lava planet Mustafar, catches the light as she puts it on his hand. It looks good there, she has to admit, and he offers her a soft, tentative smile when she tilts her eyes up to gauge his reaction.

Then -

Should they have practiced _this_ kiss? Probably, Rey thinks, because now that she’s looking at him in the high noon sunlight of Coruscant, she doesn’t think she can kiss him.

She _can_ kiss him, of course, she knows how - but in front of all these people?

Ben seems to have none of the same qualms. He steps forward and in one swift motion, his hand cradles her face and his other arm circles around her and -

He leans her back and their lips meet.

Rey is forced to hold on to him for dear life, to cling to him and this extremely heavy kiss that seems right for the moment but still _so_ out of place amongst all these people. The air around them seems to sigh, much like the crowd does when Ben holds her - oh, the way he _holds her -_ Rey feels like she’s going to faint.

His lips are soft and he smells like clean laundry and spicy cologne and his arms are strong around her, and even if he weren’t keeping her from falling to the ground, the tendrils of the Force around them would hold her up, she thinks. It’s gentle and intoxicating all at once, his fingertips resting on her bare spine and thumb brushing her skin in a way that causes goosebumps to erupt over her whole body - and she just wants to _keep kissing him._

But then the Force lets them go, and Rey can better hear the cheering of the crowd around them.

And so they part, finally, and she finds Ben’s eyes on hers and the Force wraps around them like a blanket. She feels something soft settle in her soul, and something between them tightens, like a string ready to snap, pulled taught as they look at each other.

He takes her hand then and Rey is in a daze as he leads her back down the aisle, where a ship waits to take them back to the Tower. There are shouts and cheers and the Force is alive with the excitement of the people around them, air filled with the sound of drums and salutes and flowers that rain down from somewhere above them.

They ascend the ramp into the shuttle and the doors close, blessedly blocking out all of the other sounds around them. It’s just them and the city rushing by and they’re just staring at each other. Rey can’t even _sit_ in her stupid dress, so all she really can do is either stare at him or stare awkwardly out the window.

She’s a _wife._ Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, _whoever_ it is that she just married, is her husband. Her husband who looks just as confused as she feels. Confused, and very handsome.

“You look,” he starts to say, then clears his throat so that the words will come out, “You look lovely.”

She had almost expected, _ridiculous,_ or even, _not like yourself._ The word _lovely_ is something she knew he could say, but then she remembers that in the dim light of her room the night they explored Coruscant, he had called her _beautiful._ Does he think she looks beautiful now?

“You look nice, too,” Rey chokes out, offering him a soft smile as the transport comes to a stop outside the Tower.

He offers her his arm as they descend the ramp, and Rey holds on much tighter than she would usually, only because her legs feel like jelly and she thinks that if she were to let go, she’d stop dead in her tracks for no other reason than nerves.

It’s shockingly awkward, as they stand inside the lift that takes them up to the residential floors. Neither of them seems to know what to say. The humming sound of electricity reminds Rey so much of the elevator on the _Finalizer,_ when he’d taken her to Snoke. How far away that all seems. Months have gone by and her whole life has changed.

“I’ll see you downstairs?” Rey asks, when they reach her door. Behind it lies yet another dress and Voe and Nova waiting to help her. She can feel their Force signatures, full of excitement.

Ben nods, and lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckle before turning away, disappearing like smoke.

Inside the safety and momentary aloneness of the foyer of her rooms, the sun is setting over the city and Rey feels golden.

✹✹✹✹

Ben waits outside the ballroom, longing with his whole being to tear the stupid blue collar and cape off and breathe a little. He keeps twisting the ring around and around on his finger, unused to feeling it there. The nerves that had disappeared when Rey stood before him at the altar are returning full force, under the realization that he has to walk into the ballroom and actually talk to people, and that it will be hours before they’re permitted to leave for Naboo.

Thankfully, he’s barely spoken to anyone outside of Rey and Nova and Phasma all day - Hux and Pryde have left him well enough alone, and he’s amazed at how great it is.

He hears Rey before he sees her, the click of her heels alerting him to her presence, and he turns to watch her make her way down the stairs.

Ben stops breathing.

The wedding dress was lovely, albeit a little much - but the reception dress is the best thing Ben has ever seen her wear. It’s still white, of course, but the full skirt and the opaque sleeves of the ceremony dress are gone. That dress, Ben realizes, had been made for the audience rather than the bride, the decor large and weighty and made for the train to spill over the steps so people could gawk at the grandeur of it. But this dress is made for the view to _have_ to get close.

Everything is sheer - the sleeves, the back, the bodice, the skirt - only gemstones in white and gold create any structure. It’s cut as though it’s barely there.

Stars may as well be sprinkling Rey’s shoulders, spilling over her hips, like she’s taken the night sky and wrapped herself in it. If he thought she looked beautiful in the other dress, now she’s ethereal.

Ben’s throat is tight when she comes to stand beside him.

Without thinking, he reaches up and pulls the single pin that holds Rey’s hair up out of the twist, watching it spill over her shoulders in dark waves. Free.

Rey seems to let out a breath of air she’d been holding. “Thank you,” she says softly. Ben only nods, tossing the clip to Nova as she passes.

“I’m only letting it happen because _you_ did it,” the woman mutters, a thin finger pointed at him. He hardly notices.

 _Say something,_ Rey thinks through their Bond. _Tell me what you’re thinking._

Ben turns his gaze to look at her - his _wife._ Nothing feels right to say. _You look like you’re wrapped in stars,_ he finally admits, over the mental channel they share.

Everything about her glows - her skin, her eyes, the dress - he feels like he’s being blinded.

_You are so beautiful._

Rey blushes eight shades redder at his admission, as he holds his arm out to her. From inside the ballroom, light and airy strings begin a processional.

The doors swing open and Ben is still staring at Rey, entirely enraptured, unsure of how this is the same scavenger girl he met a year ago, the same woman who held a lightsaber with such ease after no practice. The same girl who he chased halfway across the galaxy, unsure if he would kill her or if he just _wanted_ her. The same woman who moved against him this morning like _that,_ the one who’d sighed his name as he’d touched her. Somehow she’s none of those people and all the same she still is, now covered in diamonds and light and Ben realizes that he has never wanted her in any other way, he just wants her as everything she is.

Rey has to bring them into the first step, and Ben’s eyes finally snap away from hers as they cross the ballroom with every eye on them. When they reach the center of the floor, Ben gathers her in his arms just like he had when he’d taught her this dance, only this time much closer. She relaxes against him, and he feels her Force signature projecting a sort of relief at being able to tuck her face against his shoulder, away from prying eyes.

They float.

She’s warm against him, soft and sweet-smelling and there’s only her in that moment, as they wind across the floor. Her eyes look darker in the light, and they trap him.

✹✹✹✹

Rey is in a daze from the moment they enter the ballroom to the moment they sit down for dinner. When she sees all of the food in front of her she starts to feel a little more normal. But then people are coming up to the table, speaking their congratulations and bringing gifts and Rey is totally and completely out of her element, even more so than she’s been all day.

Thankfully, Ben Solo still possesses a _great_ deal of Organa-Solo charm, and she doesn’t have to say much.

Until Leia approaches.

Rey is up from her seat in an instant, nearly falling into the General’s open arms.

“You make a beautiful bride, Rey,” she says, and there’s no trace of mirth or even sadness in her voice when she says it, just love.

“Thank you for being here, Leia,” Rey says, _I don’t think I could have done this without you here,_ goes unsaid, but heard nonetheless.

Leia touches Rey’s cheek before turning to her son.

“Mother,” Ben chokes out, nodding.

“Ben,” Leia sighs, “You look nice in blue.”

Rey finds herself giggling as he rolls his eyes. Then, Leia opens her arms to her son and Supreme Leader Kylo Ren allows his tiny mother to yank him down to her level by the ear, to whisper something that Rey can’t hear. She can see when Ben’s face flushes red in embarrassment, and the humor in Leia’s eyes as she speaks to him.

When she’s finished speaking, Leia lets go of Ben’s ear and allows him to stand up straight once again, patting his cheek much the same way she’d done to Rey.

“We’ll all have to have dinner together, soon,” Leia says. “Oh, and Rey? Your friends are very eager to see you. Perhaps you have a moment to say hello?”

With a bounce of excitement in her step, Rey follows Leia over to where Finn, Rose, and Poe stand in a huddle, speaking quietly amongst themselves. They throw their arms around her the moment she’s close enough.

Finn: “We’ve missed you!”

Rose: “You look beautiful!”

Poe: “I cannot believe you kissed Kylo Ren.”

Rey laughs, listening to their overlapping words of love, and Poe’s disgusted declaration.

“Well it _looked_ like a pretty good kiss,” Rose interrupts him, raising a thin eyebrow at the pilot.

“Gross,” Finn proclaims, and Rey finds herself grinning for the first time in days.

“When do you leave for Naboo?” Poe asks, ignoring the other two and turning to Rey.

“Tonight,” she tells them, “But I hope you can visit. I’ll speak with B - my husband about it.”

Thankfully, they don’t dwell on the tender subject long. Instead, Finn pulls her into another hug and whispers quietly, “More stormtroopers have defected. Luke is organizing as we speak - obviously, Leia had to be here - but Rey, we’re _getting close.”_

Rey feels a strange sort of fear well up into her chest, and it threatens to choke her. “It’s good to see you too, Finn,” she coughs out, squinting a little bit at him, to let him know she’s heard.

She doesn’t stay to see their triumphant grins.

✹✹✹✹

Ben watches as Rey speaks to Admiral Griss, laughing a little bit to himself at the thin smile on her face and the annoyance that radiates from her at having to play nice with people that she _clearly_ doesn’t like. He tries to keep his face neutral, almost uninterested, as he listens to the lilt of her voice while she attempts to get out of the conversation.

“And your coronation ball will be even grander,” Griss tells her with a smile, and Rey seems to sigh as she nods.

“I’m very sure it will,” she agrees, picking up the glass of emerald wine that sits to her right in an attempt to hide the roll of her eyes.

Without thinking, Ben offers her his hand atop the table, and Rey slowly slides her fingertips into his, into the spaces between, and squeezes. It grounds both of them, this simple touch.

Rey smiles. Soft and sweet and just for him.

✹✹✹✹

_“Do you think this is happiness, young Skywalker? I wouldn’t get too comfortable.”_

Their eyes find each other amidst the glowing party, both wide with terror, and Rey is only _just_ quick enough to catch the glass before it falls from Ben’s hand and shatters on the ballroom floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dress Number Two! (minus the cape)](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940051527/)   
> [How I imagine Ben's Ring](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/726064771160981511/)  
> [Ben's formalwear, but in "dark" blue, and with one of those sideways capes that I can only find reference for in my head](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/803470389749072026/)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hellloooo my friends! I'm sorry I didn't update yesterday - I had nothing done and zero motivation. But! Here you go!  
> Also, there's no sex...yet. Rey and Ben have some details to work out and a little more trust to build first ;)

After the appearance of a strange voice in both of their heads, Rey and Ben promptly excuse themselves from the ballroom.

“What the f-“

“I don’t know,” Ben growls, “Can you wait a moment to stop asking questions?”

Rey follows him back up the stairs with a scowl.

“Ready the transport. We’re leaving for Naboo within the hour,” Ben instructs the first guard they pass, who departs after a brief nod, speaking into his communique as he goes. Instead of heading upstairs to their rooms, Ben pulls Rey out onto a deserted balcony, the city down below them bright and sparkling in celebration.

She stops short and looks at Ben.

He begins to pace.

The gold circlet on his black curls gleams every time he twists.

“Kylo,” Rey tries, wary of who or what might be listening. He shoots her a fierce glare and continues to pace.

_It was a voice I’ve heard before. Not Snoke, not my grandfather. Not Luke._

She wants to tell him that _of course,_ it’s not Luke, that voice could never be Luke. It was something much darker.

“Kylo,” she tries again. Her husband continues to pace. “Kylo Ren, look at me. Right now.”

Finally, he stops, boots ceasing their tapping as he comes to stand before her, eyes blazing. She searches his face and finds traces of anger, but more than that, she finds fear.

“It could have been a ghost,” he says then, squinting a little bit in thought. Tentatively, Rey reaches her hands up and places them on his arms, closing the distance between them with a single step, until they’re almost nose to nose.

She whispers, “Whatever it is, it’s gone for the moment. And we can address it tomorrow when we’re safely out of the city.”

For a moment it appears that he’s going to argue with her. But then, he does something he’s never done before - he tilts his head down to press their foreheads together, taking in a deep breath. The Force swirls around them like a soft breeze, calm and gentle. Rey realizes then that she’s the one doing it. She’s projecting peace around them like a blanket.

“We _do_ have to figure it out,” Ben says after a moment, his hands coming up to bunch in the fabric of the dress around her waist.

“And we will,” Rey assures him, but guilt twists its’ knife into her stomach even as she says it. She’s betraying him, with every promise she makes, no matter how small. “Together.”

✹✹✹✹

Ben’s brain whirls around in his skull as he makes his way up to Rey’s room to collect her for their journey to Naboo, cursing himself as he goes. 

Who could the voice have belonged to? And Rey, she’d heard it, but it had been obviously speaking to him. Could it really just have been a ghost? But what ghost would do that, who would say something so ominous? 

His thoughts only stop when Rey emerges from her room in a traveling cloak - still white - but this one is so much _softer._ It falls off of her freckled shoulders and gathers into a heart-shaped neckline, low on her breasts, the bodice twisting across her frame and the skirt spilling from her hips in layers of light tulle. His traitorous brain tells him that this one looks _so_ much easier to take off than the others. 

Her hair is still down, but it’s pinned back gently from her face, a face that’s been scrubbed clean of the heavy makeup she’s worn all day and instead dusted with shimmering moisturizer and the barest hint of color on her hips, her lashes still long and fluttering over green-brown eyes that remind him of a forest.

“Ready?” He finds himself asking, and Rey nods shyly, slipping her hand into the crook of his elbow and checking to see that Voe and her ladies are following before they start down the hallway. 

“Supreme Leader, Lady Rey,” they’re greeted at the ship by the pilot, “The trip will take at least two standard hours, without hyperlane traffic. Please, make yourselves comfortable.” 

It’s Rey who offers a soft smile and a _thank you,_ as they find themselves in the spacious belly of the cruise ship, an array of wines and food laid out for them at the table. Ben suddenly finds that he’s starving, given that he didn’t really eat at his own wedding. It’s so annoying, having to speak to people. 

As they sit down next to each other on the comfortable loveseat, Ben is reminded of their disastrous first dinner on the First Order class-destroyer, when she’d worn that _wonderful_ black dress that bared her legs and Ben had acted like a complete and total fool. Now, she’s wearing white and glowing and he’s still a fool - but a married one. 

Ben pours them both wine and Rey lifts her glass to clink with his, giving him a shy smile. They sit in companionable silence for a while, as the ship lifts off and the lights of Coruscant disappear, only to be replaced with the rushing stars as they make their way into the black. It’s only when Ben opens his mouth to speak, that he realizes Rey has fallen asleep, her legs tucked beneath her and leaning against the back of the seat, head tilted into her shoulder. She looks so lovely and delicate, her features soft with sleep, and Ben finds that his heart stops briefly. 

She stirs when he sets his glass back on the table, only to shift closer, her cheek dropping to his shoulder. 

He stills, waiting for her to wake up and realize that she’s leaning on him. 

But she doesn’t, blessedly, so Ben happily leans back and smiles a little, closing his eyes with the intention of drifting off with her. 

✹✹✹✹

When Rey opens her eyes two hours later, the sunset of Naboo is orange and golden and pink outside the windows of the ship. They’re back a few hours, Naboo’s day-cycle behind Coruscant’s, and for a moment she’s truly disoriented. And even more so, when she realizes that her head is resting on something that’s soft and smells a little bit like spice. 

Rey looks up to see Ben asleep, eyes closed, head titled towards hers as if his cheek had been resting atop her head. 

She quickly sits up, slinking out of his loose embrace in a little bit of embarrassment. When had she fallen asleep? She remembers sipping wine as the stars appeared out of the windows, but past that, she doesn’t remember a thing. Beside her, Ben finally stirs, dark eyes squinting against the bright light of the sunset. 

“Supreme Leader, Mi’Lady, we will be landing shortly,” the pilot announces, and surging with curiosity, Rey stands and moves to press her nose to the window, watching as Naboo comes into view below them. It’s all lush greenery and bright white marble and turquoise water, and Rey has never seen anything so beautiful. 

The mountains and valleys lie to the West, painted a fiery gold in the dying sunlight, and the water positively sparkles. They pass the city, still bustling with people, past the palace of the old Queens of Naboo, the waterfalls rushing from its perch on the mountain, and towards a more remote area, dotted with more green forests and rolling hills. When the mansion comes into view, Rey’s breath stops. 

The chateau is nestled in a valley, by the crystalline waters, set against the greenery that Rey stares at with wonder. It’s tall and grand, with gardens and balconies and intricately decorated stone. The pinkish colored stone is rounded off with the traditional light green roof, and everything seems to sparkle in the sinking sunlight. 

“I’ve only ever been here once before,” Ben says quietly, and Rey hadn’t realized that he’d come to stand beside her until she looks and there he is, looking out the viewport just like she is. “It belonged to my family.” 

Rey doesn’t press him for more, understanding that this might have been a reluctant decision to make, acquiescing to Rey’s request of leaving Coruscant. 

_If it has memories, why did you choose it, then?_ Rey wants to ask, wondering as she looks up into his face, resigned and regal. 

_Because you deserve somewhere beautiful._

Rey smiles as his admission floods her head, and she could almost throw her arms around him in joy and true, honest gratitude for that, but before she can say anything he’s walking away and swinging his cloak over his shoulders as the ship descends onto the landing pad. Rey follows with quiet glee, bouncing with excitement as the ramp opens and summery air hits her, sweet and fragrant and warm. It’s the loveliest thing she’s ever felt. 

Voe appears at the end of the ramp, smirking quietly at them as Rey nearly bounds ahead of Ben, desperate to feel the breeze and the last vestiges of sunlight on her skin. 

Up close the house is even more beautiful. Old but gleaming, inviting and quiet and the Force pulls her towards it, as if asking if she’ll make it all her own. Rey has to stop herself from taking the steps two at a time as they make their way up, her fingers gripping Ben’s open hand with glee. It’s light and airy inside, the natural light spilling onto the mosaicked floors and brushing the ivy that climbs the pillars. Outside, the lake rolls. 

“Good evening, Supreme Leader, and Lady Rey,” a woman greets them, stepping out from the shadow of the sitting room to meet them at the entrance. Rey’s eyes snap towards her immediately. She’s lovely, a bit older than her, with honey-blonde hair that’s twisted into a tight chignon at the nape of her neck. “You both must be exhausted. Come. I’ll show you to your rooms.” 

She doesn’t introduce herself and Rey hardly gets the chance to ask, simply has to follow behind her as Ben tugs her along, up a winding staircase and down a hallway that ends with double doors. Inside is a sprawling, spacious sitting room and attached balcony, with curtains that flutter in the wind. The smell of earth comes through the open balcony doors and Rey feels for a moment that she could cry from happiness. 

They’re lead through the room, to the bedroom and shown the attached enormous closets, already filled with their belongings, and the bathroom with a bath the size of the lake outside. 

“If you need anything, staff will be available. Tomorrow, we will show you around the rest of the villa,” the woman tells them, and Ben has the sense to nod while Rey is still staring, open-mouthed at everything around them. 

She hardly even notices the woman leave. “Our room?” she finds herself asking, because she can’t believe that all of this could be for _her._

“Yes, our room,” Ben confirms, unclasping his cloak from his throat and tossing it on the chaise, looking at her as her eyes skate around the room in wonder. 

“There are ghosts here,” she tells him quietly. From the moment they’d stepped inside, Rey had felt the presence of people who had come before them, whispering through the halls. They have something to say, but she’s not sure what it is yet.

“Yes,” Ben says eventually in agreement, softly. “Rey.”

She turns to look at him, standing amongst the white and gold decor and looking so in and out of place all at once, in his blue formalwear and with those sweeping black locks that Rey now knows are just as soft as they look. The look in his eyes is something she can’t place, something between wariness and amusement. 

_Oh, right,_ she thinks, _It’s our wedding night._

Nerves seize her stomach and suddenly Rey is shocked still, staring at her once-enemy-now-husband with wide eyes. She practically jumps when Ben begins to chuckle, sliding his jacket off and beginning to remove his cufflinks. Rey watches as he crosses over to the balcony and steps through the gauzy white curtains. She finds herself trailing after him, but stops halfway to remove her shoes, because thank the _Maker_ no one is going to tell her to keep them on anymore. 

Ben stands with his back to her, hands rested on the railing of the balcony, staring out at the glistening lake. 

✹✹✹✹

“Ben,” Rey says quietly behind him, and he hums in acknowledgment, trying to calm his racing heartbeat by watching the lake sweep against the stone shore, tranquil and calm. “This morning,” Rey begins. 

With a breath of resolve, Ben turns to face her. She’s taken off her shoes and the breeze is picking up the tulle of her dress, revealing the tantalizing inches of her long legs. Finally, he grasps what she’s said. 

“This morning,” he repeats, his voice almost cracking over the words. 

“What we did,” Rey huffs, and then stops as if she doesn’t know what else to say. 

“Rey, I’m not intending on forcing you into bed, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Ben states, sincerely meaning it. With a huff of laughter, Rey sits down on one of the lounge chairs. “Is that what this conversation was about to be?” 

Rey laughs nervously. “I just - I don’t _know_ this part, okay? I can figure the rest of it out and fake my way through it but this is, I’m sort of,” she stumbles for the words, tilting her head back and forth. “Lost.” 

Ben finds the corners of his mouth lifting into a soft smile, looking at this woman, who seemed so sure as she stood in front of him on the balcony in Coruscant and told him _together;_ who’d spoken the vows in time with his own voice and looked so eerily beautiful doing so. He moves to sit down next to her, holding his hand out for hers. Delicately, she places her hand in his palm and he begins to twist the ring on her finger around and around. 

“You’re not alone, Rey,” he tells her. _You’ll never have to be alone in this, never again._

“Wait, but this morning you,” Rey starts, a little look of indignation on her face. “You didn’t _not_ know what you were doing.”

“I’m a virgin, Rey; not a monk.”

She blushes with laughter that she holds in. 

“But, how did you -“

“I read a lot.” 

And _then_ the laughter comes bubbling out, and Ben can’t help but smile a little bit with her. 

Once she’s caught her breath, she places both of her hands around his. “So, we’ll,” she says quietly. “We’ll learn together, then?” 

Ben nods, smirking a little. “Together.” 

✹✹✹✹

For all the times that Rey and Ben have inadvertently shared a bed through their open Bond, Rey wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to it. Just like she will probably never get used to actually feeling him in bed beside her, and knowing that he’s there, in the flesh, not across time and space. 

The bed is large enough that they don’t even have to touch if they don’t want to, but Rey finds herself rolling just a little bit closer as Ben reaches over to turn the lights out. The last dregs of Naboo sunset cast shadows onto the wall, and Rey watches as they slowly slip away and leave pure darkness, and the room is lit only by beautifully decorated glow panels meant to resemble candles. 

When she looks over, she finds that Ben is staring up at the ceiling in much the same way she is. 

Should they be touching? Should they try kissing? The memory of his hands on her comes back full force and Rey finds herself blushing fiercely, wondering if it would be wrong of her to ask him to do that again, sometime. He _is_ her husband, after all. But then she’d have to contend with the fact that she’d _really_ like to make him feel the same way he made her feel - and she has no idea how to do that. 

_Together,_ echoes in her head. 

Beside her, Ben sighs in what sounds at first like annoyance, but then he moves closer, and Rey stiffens as he reaches out and takes her hand, gently tugging her closer. 

_Ben Solo likes to cuddle?_ Rey thinks over the Bond, unwilling to say the words out loud for fear of laughing, and causing him to move away. 

_Don’t you dare breathe a word of this,_ he replies, as he tucks her into his arms. Rey is shocked for a moment at how safe, how _wonderful_ she feels, with his strong arms around her middle and under her head. Who knew another person’s body could make her feel so safe?

_Your secret is safe with me,_ she tells him, as her eyes close. 

✹✹✹✹

Rey spends most of her first day in Naboo exploring. After lunch, she’s joined by Voe, who happily tromps through the extensive garden with her ( _after_ Voe kicks her ass in training, of course. _Don’t get soft now, wifey,_ she’d said).

Rey feels almost joyous - surrounded by so much life and beauty. _Finally._

The sun is just beginning to dip its fingers against the mountainous horizon when Rey and Voe find a spot to sit, talking together and Rey embarrassingly answering Voe’s questions about her wedding night, or lack thereof. 

“I already told you, we didn’t have sex. Why do you keep asking me these questions?” Rey wails, flinging her arms out around her sides and scattering a few flower petals that she’d had in hand all over Voe, who grins. 

“Because sometimes it’s good to be made uncomfortable,” she states, “Perhaps, do some _reading._ It’ll save you from having to ask _me,_ even though I’m here as your personal guidebook if need be -“ 

Rey flops back onto the bed of grass beneath the weeping tree they’ve found, and Voe laughs as she lets out a dramatic groan. 

“Boring my wife to death already, Voe?” Ben’s voice floods over her and Rey promptly sits up. He’s back in his usual black attire, but his cloak is off and his jacket is open, and he looks almost relaxed. _Looks._ His Force signature tells an entirely different story. 

“No more than you will, Supreme Leader,” Voe sighs with amusement, standing and dusting her pants off. “I’ll be over here. Shout if you need me.” 

Rey waves at her as she goes before looking back up at Ben. Frustration leeches from him and into the air, as he crosses his arms over his chest and glances up at the tree she sits beneath. 

“I knew you’d like the garden,” He says, still not meeting her eye. 

“I do,” Rey tells him, “I like it here.” 

It’s a cautious admittance, one that she only feels safe making in the quiet of the life around them. Finally, Ben looks down and usually Rey can guess what he might say, or can pluck the thoughts gently enough from his head, but this time she’s at a loss. No guesses. 

“You like it?” He asks, almost flat - but she can feel the hopeful streak that begins to color his signature. Rey nods. “Good. It’s yours. Change it however you see fit.” 

It’s a diplomatic response, but Rey knows what it really means. A home. That’s what he’s offering - something to belong to her, to make all her own. Rey finds herself smiling a little. 

“It’s your home too, you know,” she finds herself saying, as she gathers the fabric of her soft gray gown, extraordinarily modest by the standards of yesterday, but light and comfortable and so gentle. 

Ben looks like she’s poked him with the sharp end of a stick for a moment. He looks shocked. 

_Today, you look like a stormy sky,_ he tells her. And then, he offers, for the millionth time in the past few months, his hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dress number THREE because I have no self control](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/809592470500960610/)
> 
> [The Naboo villa](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/353884483220818152/)
> 
> [Sort of how I imagine their bedroom?](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/482025966366412401/)
> 
> [The gray gown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/601019512758598635/)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Helllloooo friends! I hope you enjoy this installment! I want to say a sincere THANK YOU to all of you who have been commenting and leaving me notes! It really makes my heart so happy! :') I read them over and over and I'm not kidding.  
> And now, have our two space idiots getting into an argument and promptly making out, because they're kinky like that.

Ben spends nearly all night lying awake, while Rey sleeps, and snores, beside him. The voice still plagues him. From the time he was young, he’d heard the voices of his grandfather and Snoke calling to him, and it had been a blessing when the noise had ceased with Snoke’s death. He hadn’t realized how much and how constantly his head hurt, until suddenly he didn’t hear any of it anymore.

But the voice that had appeared in their heads at the wedding is something Ben can’t place. Something darker and much more sinister than his grandfather, stronger than Snoke. Clear and frightening. Next to him, Rey sleeps soundly, and he wants to be able to do the same, but the knowledge that something else might be out there is keeping him up.

And he won’t worry her with it. Until he has a better grasp on the situation, he won’t ask her to fight any battles for him.

But Rey is Rey, and while their connection is most of the time a blessing in disguise, they’re so attuned to each other that when Ben starts to spiral down a dark hole of worry, Rey wakes. She picks her head up from the pillow to look at him, eyes shining in the dark as moonlight spills into the room.

“What is it?” she asks quietly, leaning up on an elbow. Ben shakes his head. They’d had such a good dinner - they’d talked and he’d even filled her in on the First Order’s less sinister plans, and she’d tentatively given her opinion and Ben had taken it. And he doesn’t want to ruin that streak with this particular burden. She’s not here to fix him, or his problems. “Ben.”

He turns to look at her just as she pulls herself across the ridiculous expanse of bed and lies closer to him, her hand fluttering above his bare chest as though she intends to hold him. “Just thinking,” he tells her, because it’s the best not-lie he can come up with at the moment.

Rey scowls at him, her eyebrows scrunching up in a way that almost makes him smile. “Tell me?” she asks tentatively, and he can hear the hope, the gentle reassurance in the way she asks. It’s enough to grip his heart in a strange, uncomfortable way.

“Tomorrow,” he tells her, shifting onto his side to slide an arm around her waist and press a soft kiss to her brow. “Sleep.”

She’s definitely not going to do that, and he knows it, but he feels better telling her to.

“You don’t want to talk?” Rey asks, her voice small. Oh, he’s an absolute _fool._ His mother would wring his neck.

“We can talk,” he offers, “What would you like to talk about?”

She seems to get that what had been on his mind is not the topic he wants to broach in this quiet moment. He can practically hear the gears turning in her head as she searches for something.

“Do you ever get days off?”she asks him, tucking her arm beneath her head as she looks at him in the dim light of the room. Behind her, the white curtains flutter softly.

“I suppose,” Ben says, “I’ve never really taken one. Running the galaxy can’t exactly be put on hold for an afternoon.”

Rey hums in acknowledgment, and Ben finds himself searching her eyes for some sort of insight into what she’s thinking. “Could we maybe have lunch together, one day?”

 _One day,_ as if it’s so far away. Ben hates the way he blushes a little bit. “We can have lunch together, Rey.”

This comes, he figures, after he’d admitted that he might not be able to join her for dinner too consistently, just like he hadn’t aboard the starship before they’d gotten to Coruscant. He’d told her he’d to make an effort to, as much as possible, but couldn’t make any promises.

“I’d like to see the rest of the planet,” Rey says softly, “The city and those hills.”

“You’re permitted to go wherever you want on Naboo, Rey,” Ben tells her.

“With guards,” she sighs. His blood spikes, but a deep breath brings the annoyance back down.

“It’s only to keep you safe,” he tells her, knowing even as he says it she’ll be angry with the answer.

“I can take care of myself,” Rey says, a little snappy, but still quiet.

“You’ll have guards anyway,” Ben states, tilting his head to look into her eyes. “I know you’re capable. Everyone knows. Let me have peace of mind, please.”

It’s the most diplomatic way he can think to phrase the response, because otherwise he’ll launch into a tirade about how he’d promised everyone who has ever loved her that he’d keep her safe, even if it meant from him. But only he knows that.

After a moment, Rey’s features soften. “Okay,” she says finally.

“They’re under your command, not mine,” he tells her quietly, and she raises an eyebrow.

“What? But I thought -“

“They’ll listen to you. Voe will probably be the only one to argue, but I assigned them to you knowing that I’d have no say. They’re instructed by me to keep you safe but if you want space, you can ask for it. It’s at their discretion to judge the circumstances,” Ben explains, in one quick breath, “But you can leave the villa and go to the hills, and they won’t breath down your neck if you don’t want them to.”

Rey’s eyes are wide, almost in surprise - or amusement. “Thank you, Ben,” she says.

He turns his face to hide the blush that he knows creeps up his cheeks. Damn Leia Organa for having such fair skin.

Ben stills when abruptly Rey shifts closer and presses a kiss to his cheek, her other hand cupping his jaw in a motion that’s far too tender for what he deserves. It’s true that he’d faked his confidence the morning of their wedding and it had blessedly worked, but now, in the dark with her lying next to him, there isn’t the same type of heat as there had been when she’d been perched on his lap. Now, there’s just intimacy and the weird, electric stillness of the air as her lips linger on his jaw.

He waits for her to either pull away or move closer before he reacts, and he really does expect her to move away - but Rey leans back up on her elbow and with her hand still pressed to his cheek, turns his gaze to meet her eyes. She’s so _beautiful,_ with moonlight kissing her skin and painting her in starry shades of silver. The bow of her lip is perfectly made, sculpted and kissable and gentle, and her pretty eyes rove over his face and he finds that he can’t really think anything properly.

All he can do is tilt his head up and kiss her, rejoice in the feeling of her melting into him as he cups her head in one hand and slides his arm around her waist. Kissing her like this is darker, more intimate, because in the moonlight there’s nothing else close, no impending nuptials or clock to strike marking his leaving her. No, here and now all there is is Rey’s silk clad body under his hands, and the soft rush of breath that falls from her lips when he turns them and lays her back. Apparently, his mouth has a mind of it’s own, because the moment she’s beneath him he’s trying to kiss her everywhere - her jaw, the soft spot behind her ear, her pretty neck, her collarbone - it’s only when Rey tugs gently on his hair that he realizes he’s moving perhaps a little too fast.

There isn’t fear in her eyes, though, only amusement. “Slow down,” she asks softly, more of a question. Ben cracks a smile.

“Sorry,” he whispers, and waits until she relaxes in his arms before leaning back down, pressing a gentle kiss to the spot between the tops of her breasts, where her petal-colored nightgown dips in the center. She’s warm and soft and her skin tastes like something flowery and a little salty, and Ben’s hand marks an experimental trail down her side and to the soft skin of her beautiful legs.

He’d love to just wrap her legs around his waist like he’s been foolishly fantasizing about, but he practices hard-won restraint and looks up into her face for permission to continue. Rey smiles a little, drawing her knee up to give him more access to her skin. She’s so small in his arms that he barely has to move to slide further down her body, pressing soft kisses to her torso over the silk of her nightgown until he’s close enough to shift his mouth to her legs.

She gasps when he presses his lips to the inside of her knee, her fingers tangling with his where his hand is pressed across her stomach. After a moment, she squirms - so Ben continues. He tilts her right leg to fall open, baring the tender skin of her inner thigh that he proceeds to press kisses up, as slowly as he can manage, with an increasingly faster heartbeat and trembling hands and an annoyingly difficult hard-on.

She stills smells like flowers and sunshine, only now he can smell _her,_ something sweet and dark and so unlike anything he’s ever experienced before. It’s intoxicating. And it’s almost impossible to bypass the space between her legs and instead pay an equal amount of attention to her other thigh, this time baring his teeth and nipping playfully at her skin. She lets out something between a whine and a gasp and Ben nearly groans.

 _Wait,_ she sends through their Bond and immediately he backtracks, tilting his eyes up to find hers in the semi-darkness. Where there hadn’t been fear before, now it creeps into the edges of her smile and Ben is surprised to find how much he _hates_ that, and so he backs away, gently letting go of her leg. Instead, he sits up and swings his legs under her, settling her on his lap in a quick movement as she lets out a breathless giggle.

“What is it?” he asks, pressing a soothing kiss behind her ear. Rey huffs in laughter.

“Nothing, um,” she starts, running a hand through her mused hair. Ben raises an eyebrow. “I’m not sure.”

He stays quiet and gently strokes his thumb along her spine.

“I’m not sure I want to do this here,” Rey admits in a rush of breath, and Ben has to blink as he absorbs what she’s said. Not…here? She must see the confusion in his face because soon she shakes her head, blushing as she tucks her face into his neck.

“Rey,” he says.

“It’s nothing,” she insists. “Really.”

“Rey.”

“It’s silly.”

“Rey.”

“No, really just -“

“Tell me.”

“I just thought,” Rey sighs, finally unveiling her face from his shoulder, but still not meeting her eye. Instead, she traces her fingertips over the scar she’d given him, along his collarbone. “I always thought that maybe - or dreamed, really, that my first time would be outside. You know, under the stars.”

 _You will be the death of me,_ echoes through his skull as he looks at her, her lips quirked in an embarrassed little smile. He can’t even think of what to say. It’s just so _sweet,_ and so _not for him._

It dawns on him, after the excitement and whirlwind of the past few days that _Maker, he is_ _nowhere near good enough for her._ The thought squeezes his heart in a vice grip and doesn’t let go. Rey craves love, that much has always been clear to him - she craves belonging and gentleness in most of the same ways he does, and holding her in his arms, Ben realizes a few things.

One, how much he had missed and craved to be _touched,_ in a way that isn’t violent. Her hands on his bare chest and in his hair are sending shivers up his spine that are so intense he’s surprised his bones still _work._ Second, that he _wants,_ for the first time in his life, to _give_ so completely to her, anything that he can. Anything she wants and anything she’ll take, he’ll give it.

Despite the knowledge that he doesn’t deserve the woman he cradles so tenderly in his arms, Ben tilts his head up and presses their lips together, kissing her while all in one movement, lying them back down. He wants her, he wants her _so badly,_ but he’ll wait.

“Just say the word, Rey,” Ben whispers softly, as she settles against him with another soft kiss. “I’ll give you anything.”

✹✹✹✹

Rey wakes to the sound of the lake’s waves lapping at the stone of the villa, and sunshine streaming into the room. She finds herself smiling, burrowing into the covers to listen to the gentle sounds and luxuriate in the feeling of the sun.

When she finally finds it in her to turn over, her hand brushes a cool space on the bed - Ben is already awake, and Rey finds herself almost disappointed. But then, _oh then,_ he emerges from the ‘fresher with just a towel wrapped around his waist, one hand securing the fabric and the other flipping through the comm he’s holding.

Rey’s mouth somehow goes dry and begins to water, all at once. His hair is still damp, forcing itself into curls around his jaw and water drips down his neck and pools in his collarbones, across his chest and over _extremely_ well-sculpted muscles, the kind that only comes from practical application and years of training. The scars and the blaster wound that still colors his side don’t turn her off at all. In fact, they make him look even more alluring.

“Morning,” he says then, glancing up from the screen and at her, and Rey nearly jumps. She hadn’t known that he knew she was awake, and she only hopes that he didn’t catch her staring.

“Good morning,” Rey squeaks, as Ben offers her a smirk and heads towards his closet, the muscles of his back rippling every time he shifts. Rey falls back onto the bed with a huff.

It will be a long day, she can feel it.

Voe is Rey’s only saving grace throughout the day, as she sits through fitting after fitting with Nova for her coronation gown and various party dresses that she apparently needs. As she stands getting pricked with pins, Voe rattles off facts at her about the First Order officers that she should know by name. She’s pleased to find that she _does_ know most of them, but the explicit details are fuzzy.

“Voe,” Rey asks, “Where do the Officer’s children go when they’re working?”

“Usually they stay on their home planets,” she supplies, “Or, if both parents work on the ships, they come as well.”

“And go where?”

“You’ve never seen one of the daycares?”

“The _what?”_

“Daycare. Where the children go to learn and play while their parents work,” Voe tells her, in a non-condescending tone that Rey immensely appreciates, because anyone else would have looked at her like she was insane for asking such a simple question.

“Do you have any children?” Rey asks then, realizing that for all the time she’s spent with Voe, she knows very little about her.

For a moment, Voe looks like she’s not going to answer, and Rey frantically tries to think of how to backtrack out of a potentially tender subject like this one. But finally, the woman flashes a bright smile at her and nods.

“I do,” she says. “A little girl. Her name is Cora.”

Rey’s heart breaks and swells all at once. “She should be here with you,” Rey says, a million more things bursting on her tongue. “How old is she?”

Voe laughs. “She’s five, and she’s plenty safe with her father, I think. Although, I’m sure she’d love your dresses.”

When Voe winks at Rey, it feels like some sort of promise.

✹✹✹✹

“No, no, no,” Nikita snaps at Rey as she whirls around in her spot in the middle of the sitting room. “Speak slower.”

Rey wants to bare her teeth at the woman. Nikita, an otherworldly beautiful near-human from the Hapes Cluster, has been sent to be Rey’s assistant with all things diplomatic and schedule-related. And so far, Rey hates her.

The dark-haired woman is too calm, too cold, and simply not very nice. She’s barked order after order at Rey for two hours now, as she follows instructions on how to _properly walk like a lady,_ in preparation for her coronation. The whole thing is annoying, to say the least, and Rey _hardly wants_ the coronation to begin with, so any extra work required for it automatically lands on her quick-to-anger list.

“I swear to uphold the values and interests of the First Order above my own. I swear to -“

Footsteps alert her to movement, and Rey sees Nikita open her mouth to demand that she try again when she sees the Supreme Leader standing in the doorway. Nikita drops into a low curtsey.

“We've modified the script,” he announces, stepping into the room with his hands behind his back, the heels of his boots making a distinct, sharp sound on the marble floor. “Rey won’t have to recite any vows. I’ll say them. She’ll respond with, ‘I will’.”

On one hand, she’s extremely grateful to hear that she won’t have to speak more than necessary. On the other, she’s annoyed in a weird way that she’s been given _less_ to say.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Nikita says sweetly, and Rey surprises even herself when she shoots her a glare. But then she softens, reminding herself to play nice. Perhaps she’ll yet like her, though it seems unlikely.

“Rey,” Ben says, holding out his arm for her. “Come. There’s someone here for you.”

She takes his arm without thinking, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and happily leaving Nikita behind.

 _The ocean,_ Ben sends through their Bond. _Today you look like the sea._

She’d chosen a gown that was an exquisite shade of blue-green with that exact metaphor in mind because she thought it looked like the ocean on Tokadana.

 _I like your comparisons,_ she tells him, grinning as he leads her down to the front room. She’s about to inquire as to why, but then she sees them: Rose and Finn, standing awkwardly in the entrance hall.

Rey practically skids across the room and throws her arms around them.

She misses the way Ben sighs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The ocean dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/392516923773743349/)
> 
> [The nightgown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/631278072752106635/)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hellllloooo all! This chapter is about twice the length of usual chapters because...ahem...things happen...  
> Please note that I have also updated the chapter count because I have no self-control at all :)  
> PLEASE BE AWARE that there is slightly graphic (or detailed, i suppose?) sex. Continue at your own risk.  
> Drop me comments if you love or hate Rey and Ben's first time! Too bad fiction isn't real life because I don't think anyone's first time is this good lmao.

Ben makes himself scarce as Rey visits with her friends. They have dinner together and Rey shows them around her beautiful new home and the garden and _especially_ the library, and it doesn’t dawn on her until later that she never asked how they knew where she was.

“Rose, Finn,” Rey says, as they sit on the terrace drinking delicious wine. “How did you get here?”

“A ship,” Finn offers with a sardonic smirk. Rose hits him on the arm.

“The Supreme Lead - well, _Ben,_ I suppose; he invited us,” Rose says. “This morning. In fact, he invited Leia to dinner next week, too, she told us. But yeah, we woke up this morning and she got a comm from him asking if we wanted to visit, so of course we said yes.”

For a moment, Rey is stunned silent. But Finn begins chattering something about the chocolate, and Rey is forced out of her momentary brain freeze and back into the conversation, lingering still on the knowledge of what Ben has done for her.

“Do you think you’ll be able to visit _us_ sometime?” Finn asks as they go to leave, and Rey gives him an apologetic smile.

“I don’t know, Finn,” she says, “But I hope so.”

“Good. We’re stopping in the city before we leave,” Finn tells her with a wink, _Maker, he is so bad at being subtle,_ and Rey hugs both of them, waving as they depart.

Then, she promptly scurries off to find Ben. She stumbles upon him finally, sitting at his desk and scrolling through something on a holopad.

“You invited your mother for dinner,” Rey huffs, breathless from her frenzied march up to his office.

Ben looks up, a dark eyebrow raised, and Rey can see that he’s preparing himself for a fight. “Yes, I did. I thought you wanted that -“

“This was _kind,_ Ben,” Rey breathes, interrupting his flat tone with her own airy wistfulness. “ _Thank you.”_

It takes a moment, but finally, a little smile finds the corners of his mouth. “Anything, Rey.”

✹✹✹✹

To say that he’s nervous at the prospect of sitting down and actually having dinner with his mother - who until recently, was on the opposite side of a war he’d played a large part in - is a grand understatement. Rey, on the other hand, is a pillar of excitement, sweeping through the villa with glee in a lovely, possibly hand-painted dress that he would love to free her body from.

But he follows, somewhat grimly, towards the dining hall where Leia stands speaking with Voe. Rey lets go of his arm the moment his mother is in sight, and much like she’d done with her friends, throws her skinny arms around her in delight.

 _Someday, I hope you look at me like that,_ Ben thinks, but doesn’t send it across their Bond. It’s not something she needs to hear yet.

Rey begins to speak a mile a minute, even as she leads his mother back towards the table and consequently in his direction. “Hello, darling,” Leia greets, her voice somehow soft and stern at the same time, eyes brimming with a smile.

“Hello, Mother,” Ben sighs, offering her a little half-smile, as much as he can muster with the uncomfortable twist in his stomach.

“How’s married life treating you?” Leia asks, with a pointed raise of her brow.

“We’re good, General,” Rey says tentatively.

“Rey,” Leia says sternly.

“Sorry - Leia,” Rey backtracks, flushing a little bit in embarrassment as she smiles. Ben loves the way her blush tracks all the way to her chest, and he loves watching her skin color in whatever emotion she’s feeling in the moment. He could stare at her forever, he thinks.

They sit down for dinner and thankfully, Ben doesn’t have to say much. Leia and Rey do most of the talking, swapping stories and updates and Ben watches, enraptured, as Rey throws her head back in laughter. The sight _does_ something to him - though he’s not sure what. Perhaps it’s the pureness of it, the joy in her eyes, or just the lovely, dark sound of it as she leans back, her laughter filling the hall.

He smiles a little bit from behind his wine glass.

“Did you know when Ben was young he practiced -“

“Mother,” Ben says sternly. He doesn’t want this conversation to drift towards him, in any capacity.

“What? You don’t even know what I was going to _say,”_ Leia admonishes, waving a hand flippantly at him before turning back to Rey, who’s cheeks are bright with wine and her joy. “He _used_ to practice calligraphy. Quite the poet.”

“Was not,” Ben retorts quickly, because this was _not_ how he wanted this to go.

“Was too,” his mother sings, “He used to write me these lovely little notes.”

She sounds wistful, and Ben gets a stab of something dark in his chest, something like regret for all that he’s put his mother - his _family_ \- through.

_“Your father loved you! He gave a damn about you!”_

The force of the memory takes him by surprise; Rey, in the dark, tears rushing down her cheeks and that incredible look at anger and defiance in her eyes as she’d screamed at him. Remembering it hurts more than experiencing it had.

“When he was about eleven, Ben programmed a little cone droid to follow his father around whenever he was home, and it would repeat _everything_ he said back to him. Oh, it drove Han absolutely _mad,”_ Leia tells Rey, who gets a soft, almost sad look in her eyes. “He loved him, though. So much.”

Ben looks up to meet his mother’s brown eyes, brimming with so much hurt and somehow still so much love.

“That’s enough stories for the moment,” Ben says gruffly, and excuses himself from the table.

✹✹✹✹

When Ben had left the table after dinner, Rey had waited, sat with Leia and talked more, but he never returned. Eventually, she and Leia moved their discussion outside into the garden, the older woman’s arm tucked with Rey’s as they walk.

“Leia,” Rey begins, as they look out onto the lake, “What was it that you said to Ben, during our wedding?”

For a moment, Leia furrows her brow as if she’s in the process of remembering. Rey sees the moment it comes back to her, because her face colors with amusement. “Ah, I told him that love is more about patience than it is an immediate connection. And that it’s about choosing each other, every day. That’s where Han and I went wrong, you know,” Leia tells her, that sad, wistful tone back in her voice. “I chose work over him; he chose exploring over me. And it kept going in a vicious cycle. But more than that, is that we never got around to choosing Ben.”

And oh, if that doesn’t _break_ Rey’s heart - for so many different reasons.

“I also told him that I wasn’t opposed to giving him yet another sex talk, just in case he’d forgotten.”

✹✹✹✹

After Leia departs, Rey goes in search once again for her husband, who has mysteriously disappeared for the past three hours. She figures that she’ll find him in his office, or perhaps in the training room, but when those two ideas prove unfruitful, she checks the library. He’s nowhere to be found. She resorts to reaching out with their Bond, and finds him almost immediately, out in the garden - the opposite side of where she’d been with Leia.

Rey slips off her shoes at the door and steps outside. On this side of the villa, the garden backs up to the forest and the mountain, and there’s not quite as much moonlight. The lake isn’t visible, but the fountain makes a lovely sound and the hum of life is even more present. Rey follows the path down to the fountain, under the long arch of hanging purple flowers, and through the patches of flowers and perfectly manicured trees until she comes to the edge of the forest.

He’s…walking. Slowly, but walking away from her nonetheless. Rey huffs in something between annoyance and amusement and reaches out with the Force, catching the tendrils of his signature and following them, navigating through the dark wood. She’s not in darkness for very long - no more than two minutes, before she’s emerging into a clearing. None of the lights from the villa can be seen, and the only thing that illuminates the grass and Ben Solo, standing in the middle, is one of Naboo’s three moons and the stars.

It’s breathtaking, for a moment, as Rey steps into the silvery light of the moon and lets it rain down on her. Ben must finally realize that she’s there, because he tears his eyes away from the same sight and looks over at her.

“Why did you leave?” Rey asks, quietly, carefully. He seems for a moment like he won’t respond, but then, his voice fills her head.

 _The truth?_ He asks. Rey nods. _Because it hurts._

“Imagine the hurt that your mother feels,” it’s out of her mouth before she can stop it. “Imagine how _I_ felt, how we _all_ felt -“

“Please don’t,” Ben sighs. “Please, don’t, Rey. I live with it every day, you know, and the moment Snoke’s voice was out of my head, the moment you were in it, do you think I could feel anything but regret?”

He turns finally to face her, moving forward to meet her step for step in the middle of the clearing. His eyes blaze with a little bit of anger, and so much hurt that it feels to Rey like a punch in the gut. But she doesn’t back down.

“Was that the first time in your life you’ve felt it?” She snaps, crossing her arms over her chest as the air around them cools, the Force creating a pattern of wind that responds annoyingly to their anger.

“I’m not asking for you to forgive me,” he tells her quietly.

“Good, because I don’t,” Rey snaps, and the hurt registers on his face in the form of a wince.

“I know that you don’t; I know what you think of me.”

“Don’t you dare play the victim, Kylo Ren,” Rey growls, stepping forward to press a thin finger to his chest in a gesture of annoyance.

“Stop calling me that,” Ben snaps, “I can’t _stand_ when you call me that.”

“Is that not the name you chose? The life you wanted?”

“I have never known _what_ I want!” He shouts suddenly, the force of his voice pushing Rey back in surprise. As the moonlight filters through the trees and onto his face, he looks paler - she suddenly sees the face of a boy, terrified and broken and lost.

“I’m not here to help you find it,” Rey says quietly, “I won’t let you use me like that.”

“I’m not using you, Rey,” Ben sighs finally, his voice back down to a manageable level.

“Then what are you doing?” She finds herself asking, arms thrown out to her sides in complete and utter frustration. “What am _I_ doing here, if not to be a prop and an apparently understanding ear? Do I make you seem _stronger_ in the eyes of your stupid empire?”

“Quite the opposite,” he mutters.

“Oh, so I’m a liability?”

“You make me look weak!” It’s somewhere between a shout and a growl. Rey practically stutters back as he rounds on her, but she doesn’t move - she watches, open-mouthed, as Ben rakes his hands through his hair. A telltale sign of stress, she’s noticed. For someone who exists so passionately, it’s sometimes like pulling teeth to get him to break apart as obviously as he’s doing in this moment.

“Every time I turn around and do something for you, every time I neglect one responsibility or another for _you,_ every time _I choose you,_ I look weak,” Ben snaps, suddenly tossing his long body onto the ground and sitting, elbows rested across his knees. “You _know_ how it looks, Rey. I know that you know what they think. I took a risk, keeping you here, _marrying you -“_

“You asked me to stay!” Rey reminds him.

“Yes, I did!” Ben agrees, looking up at her with dark eyes, “I asked you to stay here because I didn’t want to do this alone, I wanted to do it with _you,_ and you’re fighting me at every turn!”

“I took your hand not know what that would mean, Ben. I took your hand because I believed in _you._ I can’t rule and I don’t want to rule -“

“And you think I do?” He asks, voice suddenly quiet. Rey looks down at him. “I think we’re both misunderstanding each other.”

Rey laughs. “I think I understand you perfectly well -“

“Ah, you do.”

“Stop interrupting me!” Rey snaps. Ben closes his mouth. “I understand that you have been lonely your whole life, despite having people who love you, just like me. I understand that you’ve found yourself in a role you’re not sure you want, just like me. I know that you reject the light because you can’t figure out how to live with both sides of yourself, just like me. And I understand perfectly well that you’re confused and frustrated, just like me.”

Rey explains all of this in nearly one breath, stepping forward again and sitting down, face to face with him, her hands dropping into her lap as she sighs a breath of frustration and sadness. She wants to reach out to him, to either attack him or hold him or rage with him or perhaps just ask him to hold _her,_ because, despite it all, she wants it to work, somehow. She wants them to work together, at least.

Ben looks at her with wide brown eyes, and she hates to admit that they remind her of the sweet little avians on Ahch-To. For a moment, he looks so young. He looks like the childhood that was stolen from him under Snoke. And Rey - Rey feels frustratingly like the girl she once was, the girl who scratched lines into a wall in the hopes that someday _someone_ would choose her, _someone_ would promise to come back to her. For all the times that they’ve ripped each other’s hearts out and stomped on them and torn them to pieces, and all the times they’ll probably continue to do so, Rey is still hoping that in the end, they’ll choose each other.

They continue to stare at each other, Ben looking horribly solemn while Rey searches his eyes and probes through their Bond to find something, _anything -_ she just wants a response.

“I’m sorry,” Ben says finally, quietly, like the words are strange in his mouth. “You’re right and I’m sorry.”

Rey raises an eyebrow as Ben clears his throat.

“I want to do this with you, not against you,” he tells her, leaning back on his hands, long legs stretched out against the grass.

 _Thank the Maker, you stubborn man,_ Rey thinks with a little sigh, allowing him to hear the little tendril of the thought. He cracks a smile, the corner of his mouth tipping up in the sweetest way.

 _I’ll be better,_ he tells her, not out loud, because she wouldn’t be surprised if he can’t really say it. _I’ll be better to you._

With a breath of resolve, Rey picks up the skirt of her dress and shifts forward, and then she lifts her hand, offering it to him. For a moment, he just looks at her.

Rey narrows her eyes at him expectantly.

Slowly, Ben reaches out and their hands touch, just like they had the night on Ahch-To. Their Bond flutters open, crying for them to be closer, and Rey allows herself to be pulled forward, into Ben’s open arms. He settles her over his lap, hands moving to wrap around her waist.

 _Today,_ he begins softly, _Today you look like art._

She nearly chokes.

His little comparisons have been fluttering through her head at different points of the day when he comes up with them, for the past week.

When she wore her new favorite yellow dress: _You look like a sunrise._

The dark red gown she’d thrown on with no thought: _You look like a glass of wine._

The gorgeous, emerald green dress that he’d zipped up for her in the morning: _You look like a forest._

But her favorite, Rey thinks, is _definitely_ this one: _You look like art._

The notion that someone could describe her as _art,_ to compare her to something so sacred and beautiful, is near baffling, and she fights the tears that come to her eyes.

Her dress _is_ hand-painted and very beautiful, but what she didn’t know was - _Blue is my favorite color on you,_ Ben tells her through their Bond, his fingertips delicately tracing the flowers and birds and trees that jump off of the dress, vivid in the light of the moon. _You bring so much color to my life._

Rey finds herself smiling at the softness of it, at the tender touch of his hands and the gentle way he brushes a strand of her hair off of her shoulder, how he takes her hand and presses the inside of her wrist to his lips - the way he looks at her. There’s a sincere apology in his eyes, as if she’s worn down the walls he’s so carefully constructed.

“I know one thing that I want,” Ben says quietly, as he kisses the ring on her finger. Rey’s heart beats a frantic, loud tattoo in her chest.

“What?” she breathes, aware now of how close their faces are, at how if she just tilted her chin they could kiss.

“You,” Ben whispers, “You, Rey. I want you _desperately, horribly, insanely.”_

 _Quite the little poet,_ Rey hears Leia say in her head, as he whispers to her in the quiet, aliveness of the night, under the stars that she’s always loved so much. His eyes are wide, that very desperation showing on his face as he looks at her, and Rey realizes that they’re both trembling.

“You want me?” she asks, _stupidly,_ because that’s what he _just said, Maker, Rey -_ but it’s such a foreign concept, so new and strange and exciting and awfully _wonderful._ He _wants_ her.

 _More than I’ve ever wanted anything,_ he tells her through their Bond, because their lips are finding each other in the moonlight, intense and almost harsh, and Rey’s whole body shudders when he hauls her closer, arms locking around her. She feels small in his arms, protected - and her body moves on autopilot when she wraps her legs around his waist and tangles her fingers in his soft hair, drawing him as close as she can. The noises in her head quiet. There’s nothing but him, nothing but the way he touches her, how he slips his hand up the skirt of her dress and traces the curve of her knee and crushes her close.

Rey squeals when he picks her up off of his lap and swings his legs out from under them, laying her gently down on her back in the soft grass. It’s where they’d stopped last night, with his lovely mouth on her legs and the fluttering fear that Rey had felt then isn’t present now - no, now she craves his mouth on her skin, wants to rip the beautiful dress she’s wearing off because every pass of tulle against her overheated body is _awful._ The bodice is suddenly too tight, her nipples scraping against the fabric and Rey is panting as Ben presses his lips to her neck.

He’s going slow for her benefit - he’s trembling with the effort of holding back, of keeping his hands above her waist. Rey finds it beyond endearing. She reaches down then and grabs his hand where it’s splayed on her waist, guiding his touch down her thigh to find the hem of her blue dress.

“Touch me?” she whispers, a tentative question laced with need.

He obliges in record time. No sooner has Rey found a soft spot to rest in the earth does Ben have her leg in his hands, pressing kisses to the outside of her knee until she giggles.

 _There’s that smile,_ he thinks to her, _Maker, I love that smile._

Rey is in the middle of laughing more when he runs his fingertips up the inside of her thigh. It’s gentle, soft as starlight, and Rey begins trembling anew. Slowly, the delicate fabric of her dress slides up her legs as Ben pushes it, exposing her skin to the night air. His touch is so impossibly nice, and they’re back where they’d stopped last night, with him pressing hot kisses to the inside of her thighs. Goosebumps rise on her skin.

She could never imagine how his lips would feel - it’s so much better outside of her dreams, to have him really kiss her and touch her and wrap his fingers in the fabric of her underwear -

Ben looks up at her with a question, poised to remove the soft lace. Rey nods. Slowly, he eases the fabric down her legs and Rey presses her thighs together, not because she’s afraid, but because the need for some sort of relief or friction makes her want to cry. His gaze is dark, shadowed in the silver light and Rey is captivated by the way he’s looking at her, as if he could swallow her whole.

Gently, Ben leads her part her legs, his large hands wrapping around her thighs.

His moan sends a shudder up her spine. “Oh, Rey,” he whispers into the skin of her leg. She desperately wants to look into his head, to understand what he’s thinking. So, she reaches.

His thoughts are shadowy, but they’re available to her; it’s just that they’re _dark._ These thoughts of passion, that Rey realizes are so much like her own, belong to the dark side - but far are they from frightening. No, they’re _exciting._ It’s absolutely consuming, seeing herself through his eyes.

“Rey,” he grounds out her name, his fingers tightening on her skin. “ _Cyar’ika,_ please, let me taste you.”

She feels like she’s in a dream. A beautiful, hazy, and pleasurable dream.

 _Yes,_ she tells him, and their fingers tangle together as he places a hand over her hip. When he leans in to kiss her, Rey’s whole body keens and her back bows and Ben chuckles against her, his amusement clear through the Bond as her body hums under the new sensation, of his mouth against her core.

The benefits of their Bond are usually resigned to shared thoughts and the ability to seek each other out across star systems, but Rey hadn’t considered how _great_ it would be at a time like this.

She notices quite a few things. First, is that Ben Solo absolutely _loves_ to talk dirty to her. And second, that he’s a _very_ quick learner.

His thoughts make her blush fiercely - _so pretty, dripping for me, so tight -_ on a loop from his head to hers and Rey can hardly catch her breath. But, once she gains enough brain function to respond, he follows her instructions with excellent clarity - _slower, higher, use your hands -_ until finally -

_Yes, there, right there._ **_Ben._ **

His hands - oh, _Maker_ those stupidly wonderful, capable hands - find the perfect spots inside her as his lips close around the hypersensitive bundle of nerves at the top of her sex, and Rey falls apart with her face turned to the sky and her hands wrapped in Ben’s lovely hair.

Rey is vaguely aware of when Ben crawls back up her body as she lays there, breathless, and as soon as he’s within reach she surges up to kiss him, tasting herself on his tongue. It’s hot and dark and _so_ arousing. She’s suddenly even more desperate to feel his skin on hers, and so Rey slides her hands into the open panels of his jacket and leads him to tear it off.

 _Keep going?_ He asks.

_Don’t you_ **_dare_ ** _stop._

He laughs, light and honest against her lips as she pulls off his shirt, hands quickly moving to touch every possible inch of him.

“Help me get this stupid dress off,” Rey nearly begs, sitting up and taking Ben’s outstretched hand as he leads her back to her feet. He tosses his cloak out onto the ground in a makeshift bed on the grass, before he turns Rey with his hands on her hips. Slowly - annoyingly, frustratingly slowly - he undoes the buttons of the dress and Rey feels like she can breathe again. The soft breeze tickles her skin and tugs her nipples into peaks and her dress pools at her feet.

When she turns, Ben is looking at her like he’s never seen her before.

Her whole body flushes and a wave of self-consciousness hits her, but before she can move to cover herself in any way Ben catches her hands in his and leads her back. And then, he falls to his knees before her, lips pressing to her stomach and hips and ribs. It’s almost like supplication, like worship, as he runs his hands all over her, sending things like _so fucking_ _beautiful,_ and, _breathtaking,_ through their Bond.

Rey never knew another person’s touch could feel quite so good.

Finally, when Ben seems to decide he’s done kissing her for the moment, he leans back and takes her hand, drawing her down to put her in his lap again. Rey has a vague thought that he really seems to like her there.

Against her core, she feels his erection and just like the morning of their wedding, he twitches against her and Rey’s whole body goes hot.

“Teach me, Ben,” Rey whispers, her incessant need to devour knowledge rearing its head as she realizes, very distinctly, that she knows _nothing_ about this part. “Show me how.”

He groans into their kiss as Rey moves back, trembling hands finding the clasp of his trousers and promptly undoing them. There’s tumbling and giggling and Rey really falls in love with the way he smiles at her, bright and toothy and soft.

Both finally naked and tangled together under the light of the stars, Rey decides that she never wants to look at anything other than Ben Solo naked ever again. She stares - she can’t do anything else. He blushes fiercely under her gaze, hiding his face in her shoulder.

He’s just _beautiful,_ scars and birthmarks and all. Slowly, Rey reaches out and wraps her fingers around him, and she relishes in the whine that falls from his lips. Her fist closed around his length, Rey has a sudden, hilarious thought:

_There’s no way he’s going to fit._

Ben chuckles against her skin, her name a soft laugh with his lips on her neck and now it’s _her_ turn to blush. Their lips meet again and Rey happily lets herself be swept into his arms as her hand stayed between them, touch running experimentally over his soft skin.

“Like that,” Ben grits out when she tightens her hand, “ _Rey.”_

She loves the way he says her name.

“How,” Ben tries to say, his head tipped back and eyes fluttering. “How do you want to do this? _Do you_ want to do this?”

Their eyes find each other in the dark. “Yes,” Rey breathes, “I want this. I want you.”

It feels so good to be allowed to want something, to be allowed to admit that she craves it and to _take it._

She feels the swell of pride, of something like happiness that sweeps through the Bond.

“Come here, _cyar’ika,”_ he says, leading her to lift her hips. Her core slides over his length and the whimper Rey lets out is almost embarrassing, or would be, if it weren’t for the way he’s looking at her.

Eyes locked, Ben lines their bodies up, a question in his eyes that Rey answers by slowly sinking down, and she gasps as the stretch takes her by surprise. Ben grabs her hips to still her, his jaw clenched.

“Slow, Rey,” Ben whispers. _We’ll go at your pace. You’re in control._

She nods then, shivering against him as she twists her hips, getting used to the feeling of being so full. But finally, with a soft exhale of all the tension in her body, she sinks down until their hips meet.

It’s not pain, like she’d been warned of. No, it’s a delicious, foreign feeling of her body reshaping itself around him, allowing them to come together like this. Inside the cocoon of their Bond, something seemingly _ancient_ simmers, swells around them and whines with need that echoes through her whole body and soul and the air. It says, _finally, I wanted you, I needed you, this is it._ It’s disorienting and hazy and Rey is practically vibrating.

_Stars, Rey, you feel amazing._

There’s a certain reverence even in his thoughts as they pass to her. Rey shivers.

“I’m,” Rey starts to say, nervous laughter bubbling from her lips, “I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Ben grins - she can feel it as he kisses her neck. “Do what feels good,” he tells her, breathless, like it takes effort for him to speak. “Want help?”

She nods.

With one hand on her waist and the other cupping her ass, Ben leads her to roll her hips forward. The motion forces him deeper and closer and Rey gasps, her hands gripping his hair.

“Yes,” she sighs, her voice barely there, “I like that.”

They move together, as she draws her lips in a circle and their lips meet as she leans down, making his space her space, as close as possible.

When Ben tilts his hips up against hers, Rey cries out. He immediately stills.

She manages to shake her head, tightening her hold on him. “Let me,” she requests. Rey slowly lifts herself onto her knees, before letting her body fall against his again. Their moans mix together.

He helps her move against him, strong arms lifting her as they find a rhythm somewhere between _I’ve waited so long for this,_ and, _I’ll die if I don’t have you._ It makes her whole body flush and her legs shake and heat pool in her belly, fluttering and heavy, and the air changes with it.

As she climbs higher and higher and his restraint begins to dwindle, the string between them seems to pull taut.

Ben’s hands move from her waist to her center, his thumb flicking that lovely bundle of nerves again.

“Come again for me, _cyar’ika,”_ he whispers, the endearment rolling off his tongue so smoothly - she’s going to have to tell him that she loves it.

Rey can do nothing but oblige. It’s a cry, a shatter, this time, and she clings to him like something will rip them apart.

It’s starlight and flight and joy and belonging all at once.

“Please, Rey,” his voice cracks over her name, “Please, can I -“

“Yes, yes Ben,” her mind has left her and all that’s left is their bodies, giving and taking pleasure and existing in the space they’ve created for themselves.

And when he comes inside her it’s - it’s _amazing,_ almost transcendent, the feeling of completion. He comes whispering her name and _my love,_ and, _beautiful,_ and her favorite, her _absolute favorite,_ is the way he says -

_Mine._

She stays wrapped in his arms as the heat between them subsides, the soft air of the night returning around them. Ben presses soft kisses to her skin, her lips, her collarbone, and anywhere else that he can reach. Rey giggles in his arms, her skin finally cool as Ben turns them to lay her back.. The stars glitter above them and the moon paints them in tendrils of pure, silver light.

“Thanks,” Rey chokes out, and Ben lifts his head from where he’s been pressing soft kisses to her breasts.

“For?”

“We’re outside,” Rey says, nodding to the canopy of stars above them. Ben smiles.

“Would you believe me if I said I didn’t plan that?”

“Only halfway,” Rey tells him with a grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why is Ben’s favorite color on Rey blue?[ Well, have you ever seen Daisy Ridley in blue?](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/407223991305758302/)
> 
> [The “art” dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/860609810017547938/)
> 
> I have no self-control and I know you guys love the links so: 
> 
> [The “Sunlight” dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/612841461780549903/)
> 
> [The “Wine” Gown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/397090892146571333/) (Click around and look at the back of this dress because it’s gorgeous!
> 
> [The “Forest” Gown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/632615078884178849/)


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm late on this one today friends!! I will update tomorrow to make up for it! As always thank you SO MUCH for reading!!!!! <3

They stumble back inside some time later, after Ben takes his sweet time redoing the buttons on her blue dress, loathe to watch it go back on her body. Halfway back to the villa, he sweeps her up in his arms and holds her close, but nearly drops her when they reach the terrace and find Voe standing in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest and eyebrow raised.

“I have been looking _everywhere_ for you,” Voe sighs, shaking her head at them.

“We were in the garden,” Rey says, breathless, as Ben reluctantly lets her down.

“Doing?” Voe questions, looking vaguely annoyed, but not _really._

“Each other,” Ben offers by way of an answer, “Good night, Voe.”

And with that, he takes Rey’s hand and she giggles as he drags her away, up the stairs and back into the confines of their bedroom, which seems so much cozier now with her smile to light it up.

“Want to,” Rey starts, twirling in the middle of the room to look at him, a shy smile on her face. He raises an eyebrow to coax her question out. “Help me run a bath?”

Oh, he gets the idea well enough. He could haul her over his shoulder and toss her right into the water, delighted by the lovely way she’s looking at him.

“Happily,” he tells her, following her into the ‘fresher and stripping off his jacket and shirt as they go. Getting redressed hadn’t been fun - at least, not as fun as getting _undressed._ Rey leans down and starts the electric jets, a look of pure joy crossing her face as the liquid in the pool begins to bubble and roll, the scent of wildflowers filling the air. She’ll never _not_ look that way at water, he thinks.

Ben has a running list of all the faces that Rey makes that he likes, and the face she makes when she comes is certainly at the top of the list, but he likes this one, too - the one she makes when she turns to look at him over her shoulder, eyes sparkling and lips smirking. He steps forward and carefully helps her once again undo the buttons of her pretty dress, following the fabric down with his hands.

She shivers as he draws his fingertips up her spine. He could touch her forever.

And he supposes he can, although something in his heart makes him fear that forever won’t be that long.

It doesn’t matter at the moment, though, because Rey is grinning wildly as she steps into the steaming water, and Ben follows her in with an equally wide smile.

“I’m nervous for tomorrow,” she tells him quietly, as they relax in the warm water, Rey in his arms.

“Don’t be,” Ben says softly, nudging the spot behind her ear. “You’ll be amazing, and I’ll be right there with you.”

Rey is quiet for a moment, her hands gently carding through his hair.

 _I’m still worried about the voice,_ she tells him through their Bond, _I want to figure it out._

_I promise we will._

Momentarily mollified, Rey leans down and kisses him, their lips and tongues and bodies sliding across each other in the warm water. She’s as pliant as copper wires, like liquid gold, in his hands - she’s more than he deserves. Hands on her waist, Ben lifts Rey up into his arms and turns them, placing her against the stone wall and greedily mouthing at her neck, practically drunk with the feel of her skin under his tongue and lips.

“Wait,” Rey giggles, suddenly taking his hand and pulling him with her, using the Force to open the glass panes that separate the pool from inside and outside. He shakes his head in a little bit of amusement, but follows anyway.

The moonlight hits them as the roof disappears and they’re outside, the lake seeming to meet with the pool. It’s a pretty sight, Ben has to admit. But what’s prettier is Rey’s soft smile as she turns to face him, back against the wall, and pulls him in. The breeze off of the lake is warm and the air hazy with the Bond and the sweet smell of the water.

Ben takes Rey’s leg and leads her to hook it over his hip, bringing their bodies as close together as he possibly can, having every intention of keeping her there for as long as possible. He’s already hard against her, his whole body begging for hers as she kisses him, slides her hands through his hair and her fingertips over his skin. Who knew that her touch could undo him like this?

 _I like your messy hair,_ Rey tells him through the Bond, and he pulls away to raise an eyebrow, only to see that she’s on the verge of laughter. _And I like your eyes._

She kisses him again.

_I also like your mouth._

He can hardly breathe when she reaches between them and slowly guides him to her core.

_And I_ **_really_ ** _like doing this._

Ben laughs, breathless, as Rey rolls her hips against him and he slides inside of her in one drawn-out movement, her head tipping back and her whole body arching in his hands as she leans against the ledge of the pool. Ben grips her tight, aware that she’s not going to fall, but wanting to keep her close anyway.

Having sex outside is now his new favorite thing.

The moonlight touches every inch of bare skin on her body and Ben figures that if he died this way, right now, it’d be pretty alright.

✹✹✹✹

Rey wakes up in the morning with a pleasant ache between her legs and her body warm, so warm, and the sun filtering through the curtains. Ben has her scooped in his arms, his lips against the back of her neck. One large hand is splayed across her stomach and the other is hooked under her head, cupping her left breast in his palm. She supresses a soft giggle of amusement.

He’s got his hands on her body even in sleep. Rey has always liked her breasts fine - where every other part of her is angles and sharp edges and spine and rib and elbow, her breasts are soft, and she likes the thought that perhaps he likes them too.

“I do like them,” Ben says, his voice rough with sleep and _oh_ what that sound does to her. “Like all of you,” he mutters, his face tucked into her hair.

As if to reiterate his point, he rolls his hips against her, his hardness against her ass. She giggles.

“I love that sound,” Ben moans in her ear, gripping her tighter. With a wicked grin, Rey reaches back and takes him in her hand, guiding him inside of her with almost unbelievable ease. He nips at her pulse, holding her close.

Rey luxuriates in the feeling of the sun on her skin and Ben touching her, coaxing her body to a quick, gentle orgasm when he hooks her leg over his, one hand tugging her sensitive nipple while the other finds the space between her legs. It’s the easiest climb she’s ever made, and by the time she’s cresting over a peak it’s a sigh, a wonderful release of pressure in the morning light as Ben whispers to her.

He’s warm and gentle and Rey could do _this, just this,_ forever. “Come for me, Ben,” she whispers, her head turned to connect their lips. His hair is messy and her fingers slide through it easily as he kisses her, as they rock together before he’s rolling his hips against her one last time and sighing, sinking against her as he comes.

They lay there in their post-coital bliss for quite a while, until the sun is a few inches above where it had been when Rey opened her eyes.

“You’ll become my Empress today,” Ben says quietly, his voice still rough and dark as he presses a kiss to her neck that makes her shiver.

“Then you’ll have to kneel before me,” Rey jokes, turning onto her back to latch her arms around him.

“Oh, you have _no idea_ how much I enjoy doing just that,” He groans, and his hands dig into her sides, pinching at her waist, and that’s how Voe finds them, tangled on the floor of their room, breathless and laughing and thankfully, still covered by the sheet.

“Time to get ready, Empress-to-be,” Voe says, looking down at them with a bemused expression. “Fix your hair, Solo.”

✹✹✹✹

“She’ll process down the aisle behind the Knights of Ren, she’ll bow, and then she’ll kneel before you -“

“I get the picture,” Ben states, dully, “You don’t need to repeat the process to me. Again.”

Hux gives him a pinched look, his eyes narrow slits. This is the first time they’ve seen each other in a few days, and it’s been an absolute blessing. In fact, Ben is really, sincerely annoyed that he has to deal with all these people today, when all he’d like to do is lie in bed with Rey.

“How’s married life treating you, Supreme Leader? You look well,” Enric Pryde says, as he moves to stand in Hux’s place. It’s Ben’s turn to narrow his eyes at the older man.

“It’s fine,” he says flatly. He doesn’t trust Pryde, and he won’t bother being honest. Beside him, the General hums, but doesn’t say anything else. Curious, Ben reaches out with the tendrils of the Force and tries to search his head only to find it -

Blocked.

He’s completely and totally blocked.

_Fuck._

It’s very unusual that Ben comes in contact with someone whose thoughts he can’t read, and rarer still to find someone who has conscious walls up against Force users. It strikes a drum of fear through his body, his hands twisting into fists at his sides.

It’s a problem to be solved another time, because today, he wears the metaphorical - and unfortunately literal - crown. Nova had presented him with the obsidian circlet as he and Rey had been eating breakfast, and initially, he’d scrunched his nose. But Rey’s eyes had looked a little curious, and so he found himself saying, _I’ll_ ** _try_** _it._

 _Try_ , had quickly turned into _wear_ , as Nova set it on his head immediately after he was done getting dressed, in a _mostly_ black formal ensemble. He’d told her no color, _especially_ for this, but she’d snuck it into the cape, lining the inner layer with a shiny red silk. He…doesn’t hate it.

But he’s far less concerned about his clothing than he is with Rey’s, and it’s only because it’s yet another dress he’s not allowed to see. The wedding had practically done him in, and he _knows_ this dress is black, and he can only hope that he has enough Jedi left in him not to jump her the moment she’s in front of him.

It’s all much darker than the wedding, with the setting sun in the background and the First Order banners flying above his head, rather than an altar draped in white and crystals. Most notably, all the guests in attendance are Officers and benefactors of the First Order, and the majority of them are in black, and so he’s looking out at a sea of darkness. His stubborn, _stubborn_ mother is wearing white.

She winks at him from her seat in the front row, and Ben almost rolls his eyes - until he remembers that thousands of people are watching him.

When the processional starts, the crowd stands, and Ben takes his place.

The Knights proceed in first, helmets on, and Ben watches in mild amusement that unsettled feeling that passes through the crowd as they come down the red aisle. Voe follows, her face hidden behind a half-mask.

And then -

There she is.

The dress is black and gold, layers of tulle and impeccably designed swirls, like dark clouds that spill from her waist. The collar is high, but the top is sheer and the only things covering her actual body is the intricate beading, that snakes up her torso like flames. Ben has to fight the grin that wants to cross his face at the sight of her, lips painted red and eyes dark and hair pulled back in _three buns._

Where on their wedding day she’d taken her time coming down the aisle towards him, now she strides with something like purpose, exuding a confidence that has Ben going weak in the knees. The crowd follows her every move, enraptured, just like he is. The Force is strong around her - not just the light, but the dark, too. Somewhere along the timeline of that night on the _Finalizer,_ their wedding, and now, she’s grown considerably stronger.

It briefly dawns on him that he hasn’t quite been making good on his plan.

Rey picks up the folds over her skirt and slowly climbs the steps to meet him, and once she’s on the platform, she drops into a low curtsey. Definitely something learned from Nikita, because she scowls as she does so, and Ben almost cracks a smile.

As the music stops he offers her his hand, and she takes it.

Just like they rehearsed, Ben leads her to his right side and she slowly kneels. He takes the crown off of the podium where it sits, a thin thing of hammered gold and inlaid with pearls and rubies and crystals, arranged to resemble stars, and complement his. Ben holds the crown just above her head, as Rey looks up at him.

“Do you swear,” he begins, “As Empress of the Empire of the First Order, to govern with a rational judgement and justly perform your duties?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear true faith and allegiance to the First Order as an empire, its governments, and its rulings?”

“I swear.”

“Do you swear to place the needs of the galaxy above your own?”

“I swear?”

“Do you swear to uphold the decisions of the Empire and its will, to the best of your ability?”

“I swear.”

He had expected that perhaps her voice would waver, that she would have a hard time gritting the words out - he’s not so stubborn as to think she could want to swear allegiance to the First Order.

But Rey doesn’t sway. Doesn’t look away, or break, or scowl. No, she stares right into his eyes, and it’s almost chilling to see the power and fierceness reflected there.

“Do you swear to use your abilities in the Force to guide you, to gain focus through your passion, to use the knowledge and power given to you by the Force as a tool?”

“I swear.”

His Council had warned against adding the clause regarding the Force, but he’d quickly reminded them that _this_ was exactly the reason he’d married Rey to begin with: the Force, and their power with it.

“Do you swear to stand beside me as a ruler, at my back against our enemies, and before me as a wife and a partner, through every darkness and in every light?”

Rey blinks, her Force signature swelling in something like amusement and then -

She smiles.

So, he’d added that part. Hadn’t consulted the rest of the Council, because he plainly didn’t feel like it. He wanted some part of this to be for them, about them, and he wanted it to echo their vows.

“I swear,” Rey says, quiet, almost for him alone.

Looking at her, longing shoots through him and pulls up his spine - he wants her, oh _Maker_ he wants her - as she stares up at him from her knees, eyes blazing and alight with her particular brand of fire.

He lets go of the crown, and places it delicately atop her hair. There’s a strange completion in the moment, striking and poignant, and the Force hums.

Suddenly, he doesn’t have to do this alone. Now, she’s going to be there, always, by his side - and he feels a heady response to that power as Rey takes his offered hand and strands, regal beside him, with a glittering crown on her head.

“Empress,” Ben says, and her Force signature spikes with something that’s difficult to read, as he turns them to face the crowd, eyes still on hers. “Long may you reign.”

✹✹✹✹

Rey feels a strange fluttering in her stomach as they reach the ballroom, offering her most reserved smile to everyone who bows their head to her. It’s so different from the tendrils of joy that had been in the room during their wedding - now, there’s awe and fear and apprehension, and it’s all directed at her.

She keeps her hand wrapped around Ben’s arm, half in an attempt not to trip on her dress and half with the need of something to anchor her, to keep her from turning tail and running as this new role dawns on her. The crown is metaphorically heavy on her head.

As they enter the hall, Rey finds herself leaning closer to Ben than she might have before, as he commands the room’s attention. He looks almost devastatingly handsome in his formalwear, with eyes like his mother and a smirk exactly like his father’s when he looks down at her before turning back to the guests.

She hardly hears what he says, because the blood is rushing in her ears and her heartbeat is so loud that she fears everyone in the room hears it.

“It is with pride that I present to you my wife, _Empress_ of the First Order,” Ben takes her hand in his and steps back, almost as if he makes to dance with her, but Rey grips his fingers to keep him from moving further, aware of how hard she blushes under the gazes and the applause that fills the room.

It’s overwhelming, to feel all of that attention, and Rey desperately turns her gaze to find Ben’s, hoping to find some form of comfort in his eyes. He sends words of encouragement through their Bond, and their connection almost seems to stabilize her, to rebalance her. She breathes a little easier as they take their seats.

Wine is poured into their glasses and music begins. _Are we supposed to just sit here all night? Please tell me I don’t have to talk to any of these people,_ Rey sends to Ben through their Bond, and tries to hide her laughter behind a sip of wine as he almost chokes.

 _Not all night. Just an hour or two,_ he replies, _Hopefully not long at all, because I can’t wait to take that dress off of you._

Rey smirks.

General Hux is the first person to approach the table and offer his words of respect, even if he does look _extremely_ annoyed at having to bow to her. Rey is surprised to find that she almost takes some pride in how uncomfortable he looks.

This continues on for another hour, and in between bites of food Rey smiles and nods her head towards the people who bow to her and tries not to nod off when the string band plays something lovely and slow. She notices then - once the lights have dimmed and a few couples have taken the floor to dance in sweeping, airy steps - that Ben is staring at her. Blatantly, his entire body angled towards her even as he’s rested in the chair, chin on his knuckles.

Rey raises an eyebrow.

 _Let’s leave,_ he tells her.

 _Give it a few minutes,_ she tells him, nodding to the only partially dimmed lights and the tower of alcohol, which hasn’t even begun to dwindle.

_Aren’t you the one who didn’t want to stay long?_

Rey rolls her eyes, and for a moment, he’s quiet. Then he stands from his place beside her and holds out a hand, and she turns with the intention of frowning at him.

“Dance with me, Empress,” he says, a particular glint in his eye as he looks down at her. Despite herself, Rey slips her hand into his and follows him into the center of the floor. For someone so private, he’s exceptionally dramatic.

It must come from his parents.

He slides her into his arms as soon as they’re on the floor and they sway together, and once again, Rey feels a profound sense of belonging, of connection - Ben’s fingertips brush her back and draw soft circles on her skin.

Rey is _happy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Pool/Bath thing that I am envisioning](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/153896512245804130/)
> 
> [Ben’s Crown (sort of)](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/285134220144626099/)
> 
> [Ben’s Formalwear (sort of)](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/350928995962063382/)
> 
> [Rey’s Coronation Gown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/501307002274197984/)
> 
> [Rey’s Crown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/434104851584747150/)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately, things cannot stay peaceful forever. 😈  
> BUT i do promise that this story WILL have a happy ever after ending! Because that is my only jam. Now and always.   
> Enjoy, and THANK YOU FOR READING!

As soon as it’s deemed appropriate for them to leave the ball, Ben has tucked Rey’s arm in his and pulled her out to the transport that will return them to the villa. He can hardly keep his hands off of her and he feels like a fool - he disregards every beep of his comm that announces a message, ignores everything but Rey.

The only thing that stops him when they reach the villa is none other than Nova Forin.

“Make yourself scarce, Kylo Ren,” she states, when Rey and Ben have reached their room and Ben has every intention of peeling her dress from her body, “I’ll save you the trouble of dealing with this gown.”

Grumbling, Ben walks out onto their balcony, and sits himself down on one of the chairs with a sigh. The waves of the lake crash below him, louder than usual, and for a moment it feels as though the planet is calling out to him, like the Force is trying to tell him something. For the first time in a very long time, Ben closes his eyes and tries to listen.

It whispers with something heavy, thick like honey - something that’s sweet, but drowns.

_Choose._

“Ben?” Rey’s voice invades the hissing voice in his mind, and he opens his eyes to look at her.

He’s thoroughly convinced that she will be the death of him.

Gone is the lovely gold and black dress, and what’s replaced it is a barely-there black robe, embroidered with beautiful lace around the hem and the sleeves. But _Maker, it’s so sheer -_ he can see practically every inch of her.

Never in his life did Ben Solo believe he could be undone like this.

Rey smiles shyly at him, and it’s then that he notices she’s still wearing the crown. The sound that slips past his lips is not one he’s proud of.

 _You've ruined me,_ he wants to tell her, _I’m dying slowly, in the very best way. You will kill me, and I’ll let you. You have absolutely destroyed me._

Rey quietly approaches his side and slips her hands into his hair, so soft and gentle, like it’s a motion she’s done all her life. And gathering her into his arms and pressing his face to her torso feels the same - as if he’s always been meant to touch her. As if she were made for his hands.

 _“Empress,”_ he tries the name out again in his mouth, quieter now that they’re alone, more reverent. _Stars,_ he’s given her so much power - not just over the galaxy.

_“Ben.”_

With a growl, he stands and steps forward, forcing her back until her back is pressed against the balcony railing, and he wastes no more time dropping to his knees before her. His hands rip away the thin, silky fabric and he draws her leg up over his shoulder, eager to put his face between her legs and hold her up as she falls apart above him.

It doesn’t take long at all, and if sex could heal them both, he’s positive that they would both be saints by now.

The night passes slowly, and too fast all at once. It’s morning before they’re finally lying still in each other’s arms, asleep.

The Force whispers:

_Choose._

✹✹✹✹

Rey luxuriates in more bliss than she ever thought possible.

Each day, she wakes up to Ben blinking sleepy eyes at her, and every night she falls asleep in his arms after increasingly rigorous activities.

But nothing so good is meant to last, she supposes.

“I’m meeting Finn and Rose in the city tomorrow,” Rey tells Ben as they sit down for dinner. His jaw clenches, his features taking on a particular hardness that Rey sees less and less as the days go on - but now it’s directed at her. 

“Have them come here,” Ben says firmly, and Rey takes in a breath. She had been prepared for this.

“The Festival of Light starts at sundown. I want to walk around and see everything,” Rey explains, eating to avoid looking at him. She can feel him bristling across the Bond, can feel the annoyance that radiates from him like sun rays.

“We’ll be at the Festival in the evening. Why must you go during the day?” Ben asks, and silently, Rey gives him credit for the effort it’s clearly taking for him to level his voice.

“I told you,” Rey says, “I want to walk around. There are vendors, and visiting officials, and -“

“Rey,” Ben snaps her name in a quick syllable. “Look at me.”

Reluctantly, she turns her eyes up. What she expects to find is the expression of anger that so often follows these types of conversations, or even pleading. But instead, she finds him looking almost passive.

“I’m not trying to keep you here, I just,” he sighs, leaning back in his seat, “Your safety is my top priority. I only ask that you take Voe and the Knights; you don’t _have_ to ask my permission to go meet your friends. I know they’re important to you.”

It seems as though it takes more strength than he wants to admit to say it, but even so, Rey’s face breaks into a wide grin. She rises from her seat and nearly throws herself into his arms.

“My husband,” she coos jokingly, “Always so worried about me.”

“You’re reckless,” he states, but there’s no bite behind the words, only the faint glimmer of amusement. “It’s terribly difficult to keep you safe. But I’ll be in the city tomorrow anyway so -“

“You’re wonderful,” Rey says, pressing kisses to his jaw.

“Yeah, yeah,” he sighs, and Rey simply continues her affections, elated that she has this man in her arms. “I’m making up for -“

“Years of being an ass?” Rey asks, grinning down at him as he sips his wine.

“Something like that,” Ben concedes, and he -

_Winks._

He _winks_ at her.

It’s playful and roguish and Rey’s entire body goes hot, and when he adds a lopsided smirk to it, she nearly perishes.

“Ben Solo,” Rey sighs, “You are _full_ of surprises.”

He laughs, a sweet little chuckle that quickly turns into noise of indignation as Rey slides from his lap and flicks her wrists, locking the doors of the dining room to keep the rest of the villa and the prying eyes of its staff out. With a grin, Rey kneels before him and gets drunk on his skin and the power of having him at her mercy.

✹✹✹✹

As much as he doesn’t want to let Rey disappear into the depths of the city without him, he lets her go with a kiss and clear instructions to Voe - who rolls her eyes at him. His lovely wife skips off with glee, her flowing blue-and-purple dress rippling around her like water.

The moment the group is swallowed by the throngs of people and disappear from his sight, Ben turns from his perch on the step of the Citadel and heads back inside, the eyes of the stone statues of old queens following his every move.

Speaking of old queens - he has something to do.

In the depths of the old - but no less grand - castle, there lies a mausoleum decorated with every beautiful thing Naboo creates. Pearls, stained glass, gold and intricate flowers that echo the ones surrounding the villa, carved in stone.

The resting place of Padme Amidala.

Years ago, Ben Solo would not have sought knowledge from his grandmother when his grandfather was at the forefront of his mind. But, Darth Vader’s spirit has been quiet - Ben has not felt it in months. Not since before Rey took his hand. But Padme, she’s been lingering around him the whole time they’ve been on Naboo. In the waters, and in every room of the villa. As if she’s calling out to him.

When Ben reaches the grave, he’s startled for a moment to see that it’s so pristinely kept. The stone and the jewels still shine, as if she’d only been put to rest mere hours before his arrival. The air around him hums, draws him closer.

Ben places his hand on the stone.

Memories that are not his own take him prisoner.

_“It doesn’t have to be that way. We could keep it a secret.”_

_“We’d be living a lie. One we couldn’t keep, even if we wanted to. I couldn’t do that. Could you, Anakin? Could you live like that?”_

_Ben sees the faces of his grandparents, young and beautiful, in the firelight of the villa. So much pain lingers._

_“When I’m around you, my mind is no longer my own.”_

_Ben almost laughs. He knows that feeling._

_“I will not let you give up your future for me.”_

_Anakin makes the same face that Ben does. “You’re asking me to be rational. That is something that I know I cannot do. Believe me, I wish I could just wish away my feelings, but I can’t.”_

_“I truly, deeply love you. And before we die I want you to know.”_

_Ben feels the love as if it’s being given to him, feels the power it filled his grandfather with at this young age, and feels the dread in knowing that it will destroy him._

_Suddenly, time has moved forward. His grandmother carries his mother and Luke in her body, unknown yet to everyone around her, as she sits in the once-grand Senate hall. A man Ben somehow_ **_knows_ ** _is in the center - a man he’s never seen, but perhaps, a man he’s heard._

_“So, this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.” Padme says, and Ben sees the sadness, the simmering anger in her eyes. This was the beginning of the end, he realizes._

_From there, it only grows darker - suddenly, they’re on Mustafar, a place that Ben made a journey to long ago, under Snoke’s tutelage. His grandfather is not the same man here, now, in his grandmother’s memory._

_“You’re breaking my heart. And you’re going down a path that I cannot follow.”_

_Ben doesn’t realize that he’s the one who has gasped when Anakin’s hand rises and his grandmother’s throat is closed in a Force-choke, a move he knows all too well._

_The scene shifts._

_This,_ **_this_ ** _is the grandfather that Ben knows. Darth Vader, enforcer of the Empire. He stands before Luke, a much younger man, with eyes blazing. “Luke, you can destroy the emperor. He has foreseen this. It is your destiny. Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy together as father and son.”_

_It echoes his own words to Rey, the desperation with which he’d offered her his hand. The usurping of masters is a common thing among the Dark Side - he sees how it would happen here. Had done it._

_And he sees him fall - the Emperor. But somehow, Ben knows that this is not the end, wants to shout to the vision of Luke and Darth Vader that no, they’re wrong, something is_ **_very, gravely wrong._ **

_“You were right. You were right about me. Tell your sister you were right.”_

_In the aftermath of battle, Anakin Skywalker’s aged, burnt face is speaking the words to Luke._

_And still, nothing is finite._

_Everything disappears, and a still, white light takes him._

_Padme appears._

_“Listen closely,” she instructs him, “I will only speak this once.”_

_Ben waits with bated breath, unsure if he’s capable of doing anything other than listening, anyway._

_“I do not pretend to understand how the Force works, but I know this - there are secrets that only the Sith knew. Dark sciences, life forces beyond even the Jedi’s control and worlds unfindable. Souls don’t belong to the afterlife,” Padme tells him, “Some of them linger.”_

_“Ghosts?” he finds himself asking. Padme shakes her head._

_“Souls in bodies that are not their own. That’s all I can tell you.”_

_“Wait,” Ben calls, as she makes to turn away._

_“Take care with this, my love. Your time is running out.”_

✹✹✹✹

Ben comes out of the Force visions with a gasp, ripping his hand away from the grave as if he’s been burned.

New information fills his head like a crashing wave.

His grandfather died in the light.

And somewhere, an ancient, evil force still lingers.

Ben turns from the grave and heads in the direction of General Pryde’s office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this is a little short, but in order to keep with my preferred pacing, I had to cut the chapter in half. The next one will be up shortly!  
> [The Robe](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/707417053947387322/)
> 
> [The Blue and Purple Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/378091331216827179/)
> 
> [The “Citadel”, which is actually the castle on Naboo that I have repurposed for this story.](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/11610911526101200/)


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Did I cry a little bit writing this? Yes. Am I sorry? Deeply.   
> Remember, HEA will come, as will another chapter as quickly as possible. ❤️

Pryde is in his office when Ben goes in search of him, bursting through the door and startling the older man. Unthinking, Ben throws out a hand and closes his airway.

“When I let you go, you will speak. You will tell me when he is, and how to find him,” Ben growls, the darkness returning full-force. It floods him, drowns him in its power.

“Supreme Leader, I don’t -“ Pryde begins to speak, but Ben uses the Force to tear him from his seat and send him flying into the wall.

“Speak,” He growls once more.

“Who told you? How did you find out -“

With a quiet roar of anger, Ben stalks over to the man lying crumpled against the wall and roughly grabs his lapel, lifting him to meet his eye.

“You will tell me where Sidious is, _now,_ or I will relieve you of your every limb until you are screaming, and pluck it from your head myself.”

Pryde grins in a sickening way, and Ben feels his whole body seize with anger. “Ah, Kylo Ren - you may run, but you cannot hide from the darkness that lives inside of you. Sooner or later, I knew it would reappear.”

Resorting to something that will hurt, Ben winds back his fist and punches Pryde in the mouth.

_“Where is he?”_

“Exegol,” Pryde spits finally, red seeping into his white smile.

Ben presses the comm on his wrist, and finally, in come the guards. “Lock this man up,” he instructs, standing from his crouching position, “He will not see the light of day. Bring him nothing.”

As he’s being lifted from the ground, Pryde levels Ben with a steely, menacing gaze. “Young Skywalker,” he says, “The damage is already done.”

✹✹✹✹

Rey walks alongside Finn and Rose, elated and stuffed with all of the delicious food that she’d procured from the various stalls of the visiting vendors and Naboo’s official delicacies. She laughs and smiles and she greets people - and she _loves_ it.

She’s sitting with Finn and Rose by one of the fountains, the Knights of Ren and Voe standing vigilant around her, and Rey frowns frequently at the way they shield her from the crowds. A Twi’lek woman appears at the edge of her guard, and she looks about Rey’s age, her lilac-colored skin glowing under the light of the setting sun.

“May I speak with the Empress?” she asks, and Voe shoots Rey a glance.

“No one is permitted to be any closer to the Empress -“

“Let her through,” Rey calls, past the Knight who begins to speak. Rey waves the woman forward. “Hello.”

“Hello, Empress,” the Twi’lek greets, dipping into a low bow, and Rey’s eyes nearly bug out of her head.

“Please stand, there’s no need for that,” Rey tells her with nervous, embarrassed laughter. “What’s your name?”

“Tan’kru, Empress,” the woman tells her, and Rey searches her own mind for information that she knows.

“Where you come from, are there mountains?” She asks.

“Yes,” Tan’kru says with a bright smile, “Tan means hope, and Kru means mountainous - where I come from.”

“That’s really lovely,” Rey says, a little wistfully, smiling at the girl. “What can I do for you, Tan’kru?”

“Nothing,” she says, “I just wanted to say thank you.”

Rey is perplexed for a moment, because she’s trying her hardest not to look into her head with the Force, instead waiting for the girl to tell her herself. “What for?”

“The First Order’s new policy on creature trafficking,” Tan’kru states, “I was stolen from my home when I was young. It’s very common, on Ryloth, that young girls are taken from their families and sold as slaves. I was one such girl, but the new security measures for trafficking and searching imports and exports, they helped free me. So, thank you, Empress, for I know that you’ve had a hand in this.”

Rey is stunned into silence for a long few moments, staring at Tan’Kru as if she’s never heard someone speak Basic before. But then it starts to dawn on her, and Rey flushes eight shades of red.

“I, um,” she stutters, offering the girl a smile, “I’m very passionate about it, yes. But actually, I believe that was all my husband.”

Tan’Kru looks surprised, but not confused. “The galaxy doesn’t know very much about him. But, he must be a better man than we all thought.”

Rey finds herself smiling. “I think he is.”

She ends up offering Tan’Kru a spot with them once the festival begins, but she politely declines and tells her that she has friends she plans on meeting. They part with mutual smiles and laughter. As they continue their walk, Rey endures a long round of questioning by Voe when Finn and Rose wander off to find drinks, regarding her nighttime tryst in the garden. Rey stutters through an extremely obvious lie, grateful when her friends return, but nonetheless amused by Voe’s questioning.

By the time the sun is starting to set, they’re making their way up to the Citadel, Finn and Rose arm-in-arm, and Voe and the Knights trailing closely - but not quite as _bristly -_ behind them.

A searing pain wraps around Rey’s skull.

She lurches forward in surprise, gripping Finn as she doubles over in shocking pain, sucking air into her lungs.

_Rey._

Ben’s voice is a panicked, growling sound.

_Please don’t be close, stay in the square -_

The ground gives a shivering rumble, and in the distance before her, the Citadel begins to crumble.

✹✹✹✹

Rey’s whole body lurches as the building begins to fall, hanging on for dear life to Ben’s Force signature as she makes a beeline for where the smoke is the thickest. She hardly hears the screams.

“Rey!” Finn and Rose and Voe are shouting her name, but she’s already halfway through the square, her eyesight blurring at the edges as the smoke hits her face.

Then, she’s mid-step when suddenly she’s grabbed from the side and hauled into someone’s arms.

“Let me go!” She screams, using her weak hold on the Force to push whoever has grabbed her away.

“Rey, it’s me! It’s Poe!”

She stops.

The pilot stares at her with wide eyes, hands on her shoulders as Voe and Finn and Rose catch up.

“The Knights have gone ahead,” Voe tells her, as if that might stop her from running away from them and running the 500 feet towards the building that her husband is in.

“What happened?” Rey asks, looking around at her friends. “Did you do this?”

They don’t confirm that they have, but they don’t deny it either.

“Did you do this?!” Rey screams, stepping forward and grabbing Poe’s jacket in her fingers, aware that Finn is trying to pry her away.

“We didn’t do this, Rey,” he ensures her.

“Then who did?”

“We don’t know -“

“ _How_ can you not know? You don’t know anything?” Rey shouts, “ _Who_ could it have possibly been? I could have been in that building! Or was that not of any concern?”

“Rey, it wasn’t us!” Finn pleads with her, “We didn’t know, I swear -“

She holds a hand up to silence him as Ben’s Force signature floods her mind.

“Rey?” Rose steps forward, “Rey, why are you acting like this? Isn’t this, wasn’t something _like_ this, the plan all along?”

Rey’s heart seizes.

She finds that no words can come out of her mouth.

“Oh, _damn it,”_ Poe huffs, barely heard over the screams that still permeate the air, only slightly duller now. “You _love_ him.”

She’s already ignoring him, clinging to the sound of Ben’s voice in her head.

_Where are you?_

Rey lets out something like a sob, relief flooding her veins. She turns to go -

“Is it true, Rey?” Finn asks her, stopping her from moving with a hand on her arm, fingers wrapped around her bicep.

She can’t say it. She can’t admit it, _can’t can’t can’t_ -

Rey turns on her heel and heads towards Ben.

✹✹✹✹

When she finds him, he’s helping someone up from the ground, out of the rubble. The front of the building has sustained the worst of the damage, the marble statues of the old queens having crumbled along with the left side of the hall. But people are pouring out, looking as terrified as Rey feels.

All she can see is Ben, dust in his hair and pant leg torn, looking menacingly at General Hux when he attempts to speak to him.

_Ben._

His eyes find hers, and they step forward at the same time. Rey launches herself into his arms, tears rushing down her face as she wraps her arms around his neck, breathing in the scent of him, elated and terrified and destroyed all at once.

It’s then that the galaxy realizes:

_Supreme Leader Kylo Ren loves his wife._

✹✹✹✹

There are questions that need to be answered, people who need to be questioned, investigations that need to take place - but all Ben can think about is Rey.

When the building had begun to rumble, his only thought had been her, and it was her power that he’d hung onto that kept the entire ceiling from falling onto his head as the walls began to shake. He has guesses, but that’s all. Nothing makes sense but having Rey in his arms.

Once he’s set her back on the ground, his power wraps around Hux’s throat and he turns to the man, his wife still tucked in his arm.

_“Who did this?”_

Hux coughs, hands coming up to scrabble at his collar, “Supreme Leader, we have no lead, at the moment -“ he gasps out, “Not Resistance-style bombs, not anything we’ve ever seen -“

“Ben,” Rey whispers softly, her hands entwining in his to break off the tethers of the Force that bing his General. “It wasn’t them, my love.”

_My love._

“Postpone the Festival,” Ben rasps out, “I want a full report in two hours.”

And with that, he grabs Rey’s hand and leads her away from the smoky air, towards the shuttle that appears. He vaguely registers that Voe is trailing nearby.

“Supreme Leader, what about the Council -“

“They’ll come to the villa. No more questions,” Ben growls, shutting the transport door in Hux’s face as they board, turning to find Rey looking at him. She looks lovely even with inky mascara running down her face, her pretty skin marked with dust that likely came from him, and the hem of her gown torn from running.

“Who did this, Ben?” She asks, voice quiet and so broken, and he wants nothing more than to curl her up in his arms and soothe her, to remind her that he’s there.

“I don’t know,” he tells her, wincing even as the half-lie leaves his lips. Whoever orchestrated the attack, they were somehow related to the Emperor - Ben is positive. The new bane of his mildly peaceful existence.

Rey steps forward and folds him into her arms, and that’s how they stay for the entire ride back to the villa - their arms wrapped around each other, and Ben burns with something like shame at the lie he’s told her, at all the lies he’ll have to tell her. The lies he’s _been_ telling her.

And all the words that he hasn’t said.

When they reach the house, Rey is quiet as he leads them upstairs, into their bedroom. He can feel her eyes on him, can feel her brain poking at his, asking to be let further in. When the door closes, he hauls her into his arms and kisses her, and she gently runs her hands over him as they undress, small hands tracing the new bruises that are forming and the tender, torn flesh of his back - old scars and new.

He takes her in his arms and -

He is a different person. A different version of himself, suddenly; someone worthy of loving such a woman as Rey.

_If we could have had another life…_

But they only have this one, and he cannot change who he is or what he’s done.

Ben picks Rey up and walks them over to the bed, the dying sun painting the room in shades of pink and orange and gold, as he turns her. He registers her momentary confusion that she projects at this new position, as he leads her to kneel before him, pressing hot kisses against her spine and feeling her body under his shaking hands.

“Please,” he begs, pulling her up and against his back, his hand finding a place around her neck as he speaks in her ear. “Please, Rey. I need you.”

She whimpers, and it grates so deliciously against his soul.

“Yes,” Rey breathes, reaching back and taking his already hard length in hand, leading him to press inside of her. She’s already wet and her body takes him so easily, as if it were made for him, like he was made for her.

Ben leads her to place her hands on the bed, leaning over her back and wrapping a hand in her now messy hair, and he uses every ounce of restraint he possesses to pull almost all the way out of her and wait for her to complain about it.

The complaint comes in the form of her hips moving back to seek his, to take control.

Ben wraps a hand back around her neck and snaps his hips up into hers. Rey’s cry echoes throughout the room, bouncing off of the walls and through the open doors and off of the water and filling the air around them. It’s a cry that very quickly turns into a desperate moan, as he finds a rhythm that hardly lets her breathe.

And this, _this_ is what he should’ve been doing all along - he should never have let himself fall for her, or been so gentle, or loved her so tenderly that first time. He should have fucked her and never looked her in the eye as he came, should have never, _ever_ let her in. She is under his skin, in his soul, and it’s as if all the cracks of his heart have been sealed now that she’s made her way in.

He’s just going to have to reopen old wounds. This is not going to have a happy ending.

“Ben,” Rey cries, her hand coming back to tangle in his hair, pulling him close and he can’t help it - he’s so _weak_ for her - their lips meet and space between them is nonexistent.

 _Maker, he is weak -_ he promised to give her everything, and he knows that she believes he meant such a promise materially. All the gems and planets and delicacies that she could ever want, he had promised and thus far had made good on. He never planned on _everything_ meaning his heart, his soul, or his whole damn _life._

His body aches for her, as she pulls him towards her and it’s as if she’s standing at his back, trying to nudge him off of the cliff that he’s been at the precipice of ever since sliding inside of her. Holding back becomes harder and harder when she comes around him, her body shaking and the walls of her fluttering around him, tightening as she falls apart. Ben leans up and grips her hips, gripping her tight as he fucks into her and nearly cries at the sound of her whimpering his name, begging for him, asking him for _more more more, please -_

Rey comes with another shattering cry when he wraps an arm around her hip and flicks at that lovely little spot between her legs, rolling it under his fingers, and he finally releases the hold he has over his own body and follows her there.

Night falls over them slowly when Ben finally rolls off of her and lays next to her, their hands entwining as their breathing slows.

“Tell me,” Rey whispers, after a few long moments of silence. Ben turns his gaze from the ceiling to find her looking at him, her eyes dark and pleading. “Tell me what happened. I can feel that something is wrong.”

He can’t say it out loud, can’t find the words to explain to her that he was wrong, is wrong, has _always_ been wrong - and that he has to fix this on his own. With a sigh, Ben slides out of the bed reaches for his trousers, as Rey sits up and looks at him. Her gaze and her entire Force signature pleads with him to open to her, and he wants to, he so _badly_ wants to.

But he’s a stubborn bastard, so he throws his shirt back on even as she gets up and follows after him, arms sliding into her robe.

“Ben!”

He finally turns to her, avoiding her gaze. He’s a coward, and it’s a painful admittance, even to his own conscience.

“You found out what it is, didn’t you?” Rey asks, stepping forward to take his hands in hers. “The voice. You found it.”

Ben looks down into her eyes, carefully preparing to guard his heart, building back up his wall brick by brick, even as her gaze threatens to break him. “Yes,” he grits out.

“Who?”

“It’s not your concern.”

She steps back - _please, just back out of it all, Rey, before I can hurt you more -_ and levels him with a glare.

“Excuse me?”

“I said it not of any concern to you,” Ben repeats, “I’ll take care of it.”

Her thins arms are straight at her sides and her jaw is set, and the way she looks at him undoes everything - all the progress they’ve made, the tenderness that they’ve shared, everything they’ve been to each other - she looks at him the way she did the first time they met. It all falls away, and Ben’s heart breaks right along with it, even though he knows that he’s the cause of it.

They are doomed, Ben realizes, and they have been from the beginning. It would take a miracle for them to love each other the right way, in this life. They are destined to hate each other in such a fierce way that perhaps that’s why it looked so much like love.

He knows this because even as he breaks her heart and his own, he can’t bring himself to apologize for what he’s done.

 _It will be easier in the end_ , he tells himself, _if she hates me_. _When time runs out, she can’t love me._

“I’m going with you,” Rey says stubbornly. Despite the swell or adoration that fills him, Ben shakes his head.

“No, Rey. I’m going alone.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am, and you will stay _right here.”_

Rey bares her teeth. “What happened to doing this together, from now on?”

“Please, Rey, we are a liability to each other. We have been betraying each other from the beginning and you know it. Why else would you feel the need to remind me that the Resistance _didn’t_ destroy the building? Why would you defend them, if not because _you_ don’t want to be found out?”

“I _know_ it wasn’t them! But if it were, I would have had _nothing_ to do with it -“

“So you knew nothing about the three hundred stormtroopers that have gone _missing_ over the past month? Nothing about the defections?”

Her mouth closes comically fast.

And _damn it,_ he didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want to believe that she had anything to do with it.

“Ben, I am _not_ trying to betray you - I’m trying to protect my friends.”

“You’re doing a poor job.”

Rey narrows her eyes. “I’m sorry, did you think that I cared about _you_ more than them? That I couldn’t balance both?”

“You don’t care for me.”

“You don’t know _anything_ about how I feel, Ben Solo!”

He shrugs, knowing that it will get her right where he wants her. Past anger, and to -

“So our vows mean that little to you?”

_Hurt._

Ben winces. “We didn’t even _write_ them, Rey.”

“Making love was nothing?”

“I needed you out of my system.”

“You _held_ me -“

“Placation.”

“You have an excuse for everything, don’t you?” she seethes, tears hanging on the edges of her long lashes.

The Force is a storm around them, their Bond keening with cries of _don’t do this don’t do this don’t -_ he _has_ to, because it’s the only way to keep her safe. He has to detach himself from her or he’ll never be able to do what needs to be done, so that maybe she can move on from this. Maybe she can move on from him, if he severs it cleanly enough.

The hurt in her eyes makes him want to backtrack, to take it all back and flood their Bond with love and hold her in his arms. They stare at each other for a long moment, Ben’s heart sitting like a heavy weight in his stomach.

“Go, then,” Rey says finally, waving a hand as if to cast him out.

Steeling every nerve he possesses and dampening his breaking heart, Ben turns on his heel and walks out - and he closes their Bond.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am back with balm for your souls!! I am SO sorry about that last chapter, but I needed to set up the next part ;)  
> I hope this one helps a little bit! There are lessons in here that I wished had been in TROS, so see if you can catch the theme.

The moment he steps from the room and the door swings shut behind him, Rey falls to her knees and begins to weep.

✹✹✹✹

She doesn’t feel him in her dreams. Doesn’t feel his signature nudging at her brain like she’s felt every day for what feels like an eternity, now, in a way that’s familiar and comforting. It’s as if something inside of her is hollow, like half of her soul is missing, with the Bond shut the way it is.

Her dreams are gray - nothing there and no love to catch her as she falls asleep. It’s terrible, and she cries.

When she finally, _finally_ falls asleep, she feels someone there, but the signature is weak and unfamiliar, too soft to be her Ben, but something entirely different. A woman.

Before her, Rey blinks to find the dark eyes of the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen. She looks vaguely like Leia, of the holos that she’s seen of when the General was young. This woman’s hair is curlier, her face pointed and soft all at once.

“Hello, Rey.”

In the dream, they’re standing on the shore of the lake - on the island. The villa is in the distance.

“I used to love this place,” the woman says, sitting down gracefully and patting the space next to her for Rey to sit. “It’s the most beautiful in the summer. Though, when you’re in love, everything looks more beautiful, doesn’t it?”

Rey stares and stares at this lovely woman, the Force knocking at the metaphorical door of her head, asking her to make a connection. The woman blinks, and Rey sees it -

“You’re Ben’s grandmother. Luke and Leia, they’re your children,” Rey realizes, and again, the woman smiles. “Padme.”

“It’s nice to finally get to talk to you,” Padme says, “I’m not a Force user, but I grew up around some of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy, and I know enough to respect it very much. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“From who?”

“My husband, of course,” Padme states.

“Anakin Skywalker?”

“The very man,” she says, “He sent me to you because he thought we might get along.”

Rey cracks a smile.

“Anakin cannot reach Ben, because he won’t let him in. For all his life, Ben believes that Anakin died as Darth Vader - but he didn’t. He died in the light. My children made a mistake in not telling Ben the true story. But, everyone makes mistakes,” Padme explains.

Rey feels tear in her eyes.

“How do I help him?”

Padme shakes her head a bit. “The threat he faces - he thinks he has to face it alone. He must figure out for himself that he will need you. All you can do for now, darling Rey, is know that your love is pure, and it will save both of you.”

“But what should I do? The voice - who is it? He’s there, alone,” Rey starts to stammer, shaking her head.

“Darth Sidious,” Padme says, “The Emperor. There is dark science that belongs only to the dark side, and it does things that we could never imagine, Rey.”

“And Ben knows?”

Padme nods. “The Emperor will never understand the power that you and Ben possess. His hatred blinds him, and always has,” she states, and then tilts her head as if she’s listening to something. “Ah, I believe my time is up. Someone else wants to speak to you.”

As she stands, more questions bubble on Rey’s tongue, but then another figure appears.

“Ahsoka,” Padme greets.

“Hey there,” the Togruta replies, offering both of them a bright, lovely smile. “Rey, Ben is going to come back to you. Hold tight until he does.”

“How do you know?”

“Anakin can’t see him, but I can. I can’t reach him, but I can see him. Trust me,” Ahsoka says, and through the Force, in the dream, Rey begins to understand who this woman is. “I’ll be back to speak with you more later, when you’re ready. For now, you’ve got a family to protect.”

Rey frowns. “What family?” she asks, “I don’t have a family.”

“Of course you have a family - you have always had one. In every Jedi, every Force user, every friend you’ve ever made,” Ahsoka says, “Silly girl. No name defines you. You choose your family. You decide who you are.”

✹✹✹✹

Rey wakes up feeling only moderately rested, and cold - _so cold._

The Bond is still shut tight, and the bed beside her is empty. The sight of has Rey trying to choke back another sob that stings her worn eyes, and she fights to take in a breath, swinging her legs out of bed and forcing herself into the ‘fresher.

 _He’ll come back you,_ Ahsoka had said. But when?

Will he? Can they repair what broke? Everything they created together, it all fell apart faster than Rey could blink - can that be fixed?

Despite the reassuring words of the women in her dream, Rey finds herself sick to her stomach, practically a zombie as she forces herself to dress, knowing that with Ben gone, it will be her job to facilitate the damage control that inevitably awaits her. Unthinking, she digs through the back of her closet for something more powerful than she feels. What she ends up with is a black and gray dress, with a velvet bodice and a full skirt - the very thing that Ben always likes.

She squeezes her eyes shut at the thought and slips the dress on, pulling her hair back into her three buns, because it’s all that she has the energy for.

Voe appears at her door with a somber smile. “A fight in the throne room, Empress,” she says, “You’re up.”

Rey nods, headed numbly towards where voices rise from what is indeed a throne room - that they haven’t yet used - her dress sweeping across the marble floor like a storm. She certainly feels like a story, but far from a beautiful one.

She reaches the throne room and when the doors open, she is met with a wave of sound. On one side, Leia sits quietly in a chair, watches as Hux and Poe scream at each other. When they notice her, the room quiets.

“What is going on here?” Rey questions.

“Empress -“

“Rey, these fu -“

“An _uprising!”_

“The stormtroopers -“

“The Citadel’s collapse -“

“ _They_ think that _we -“_

The noise crowds Rey’s head, and it hurts, _it hurts,_ without Ben there to quiet all of it.

“Enough!” Rey shouts, and finally, _finally,_ there’s quiet.

With a deep, shaky breath of resolve, Rey steps forward and tries not to cry at the sight of the chair next to hers, knowing that Ben is not beside her. Carefully, she sits, and looks to Leia.

“General Pryde is dead,” Leia supplies her with the information in a matter-of-fact tone, “He was -“

“Murdered!” Hux shouts, and without a thought, the Force flows from Rey’s fingertips and sends Hux flying back into his seat, effectively cutting off anything else he’d think to say. Leia sighs.

“He was found in the rubble of the Citadel this morning.”

Rey listens carefully, and when Leia stops speaking, Rey releases the gentle hold she’d held over the room, allowing everyone to find that their voices once again work.

“And was this the Resistance’s doing?” Rey asks.

 _I know you’re hurting, Rey,_ Leia communicates to her through tendrils of the Force, bright and gentle. _But come back to yourself._

“It wasn’t us,” Poe says, solid.

“Then how did it come down?” Rey sighs.

“I do _not_ believe that the Resistance had no hand in this -“

“What brought the Citadel down?” Rey interrupts Hux’s voice.

“Empress Rey -“

“What was it?” she snaps.

Suddenly, the room fills with guilt. And it’s not from the side of the Resistance.

“Myself and General Enric Pryde were instructed by Emperor Palpatine to take down Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, in whatever means possible. It was not intended for anyone else to get caught up in the crossfire.”

Rey almost sighs. Of course it would be this way. Of course.

Even the other First Order Generals look scandalized. Clearly, the influence of Darth Sidious does not run deeply enough to affect so much of the organization, but that begs more of a question as to how Hux and Pryde came to be involved.

“Speak,” Rey instructs, sliding Hux’s chair - with him in it - into her direct line of vision.

The words pour from his mouth. “Myself and General Pryde were given orders by Supreme Leader Snoke to visit a planet called Exegol, where we would find audience with the Emperor. Kylo Ren was never supposed to live so long, after becoming Supreme Leader. The Emperor knew that eventually Supreme Leader Snoke would be slain, and Kylo Ren would take his place,” Hux explains, “But _you_ became a complication. The Emperor proposed the idea of marriage and we were simply lucky that you were both foolish enough to fall for it. Two lonely children -“

Rey uses the Force to send a vase flying into his head.

No one else in the room dares to move.

“Continue,” Rey instructs.

“The Emperor reasoned that with two Force users on the throne, he’d have the power he needed over the galaxy once he decided to reveal himself. When it became clear that the two of you were not going to destroy each other the way that he had hoped, we had to resort to more desperate measures,” Hux states, as blood drips from his temple.

“What was the plan?”

“A series of laser-detonated bombs, placed in the Supreme Leader’s office. We had not foreseen Ren suspecting General Pryde, or having him taken to his office.Ultimately, General Pryde triggered the explosions.”

“And what was the plan, once you were rid of the Supreme Leader?” Rey asks.

“To pin it on the Resistance in the hope that you would step down from the throne and seek retaliation. Then, the Emperor would reveal himself and take both the Resistance down, and the galaxy for himself, as is his right.”

Rey stares blankly ahead, absorbing the information. Hux opens his mouth to speak, but she’s heard quite enough.

“And what did the investigative troopers find?” She directs her question to Admiral Griss, who moves swiftly to bow, and speak.

“I had assumed that it would be the Resistance, Empress, forgive me,” he stutters out, “However, I think that in light of recent events it is safe to say that their report will detail the what General Hux has explained. No one will be charged without your permission, Empress.”

Rey nods quietly, her head tilted and fingertips tracing the sun and moon centerpiece on her crown. The gems are sharp - but at least they feel like something.

“Hux, what’s the extent of the Emperor’s power, exactly, that he believes the galaxy will bow to him?” Rey questions.

“He’s cheated death,” Hux explains simply, “He possesses more knowledge than anyone else in the universe.”

Rey feels Leia’s eyes on her. She feels everyone’s eyes on her, actually, from both sides of the room. Everyone waits for a decision, for anything, no matter what it might be. But all Rey can think about is that Ben has sent himself to some unknown planet that is the home of a madman, the most dangerous Sith Lord to ever live. And she prays that he won’t slip like water into false promises of power.

“Knights,” Rey calls, and the Knights of Ren slink like shadows from the corners of the room, awaiting her command. “Please remove this man from the room. I don’t care where you put him - so long as it’s somewhere he can never return from.”

The Knights who move forward are swift and quiet, and they disappear from the room as quietly as they came.

“Rey,” Leia says softly, “Where is he?”

She asks, but Rey knows that Leia knows exactly where her son has gone. The silence in the room in the absence of Rey’s explanation is thick. She is caught effectively between two worlds, with her friends on one side and her absent husband on the other, and Rey can do nothing but sit quietly in blank thought as they all look to her.

It’s a blessing when the lack of sound is interrupted by the doors swinging open with a crack, and in walks a bleeding Kylo Ren.

Rey is on her feet in an instant, all anger forgotten as he lumbers in, headed straight for her. He’s bleeding from a cut on his lip and above his eye, devoid of cape and crown.

He stops a few steps before her and finally meets her eye, wordlessly holding out the hilt of his lightsaber. She understands that he means for her to take it, and so she places it on the chair that she’s vacated and looks at him, her heart caught in her throat and tears in her eyes.

Kylo Ren ascends the stairs -

and falls to his knees before the Empress.

✹✹✹✹

When Ben falls to his knees before Rey, he feels the tears already leaking from his eyes as he reopens the Bond, sending thought after thought of apology to her.

“Leave us,” Rey addresses the room, clear and strong, and it’s not until everyone has left that she crouches down to look at him. “What have you done my love?”

“He’s coming,” Ben says quietly, his voice a rough whisper.

“Ben,” Rey whines his name, falling to her knees to take his face in her hands. “What happened?”

He lets her in to see his journey to Exegol, to find that Snoke was nothing more than a mirage, to find that every voice he has ever heard was the mind of a desperate, dying Sith who intended to use him just as he’d used Anakin. He lets her see the fight that he couldn’t win, against someone he never should have challenged to begin with. The dark side had vibrated through the planet, and he couldn’t draw it. Could hardly feel it, dark or light. Finally, he shows her what Palpatine had shown him - the cult. The followers of Palpatine and of the dark side, the Sith resurrectionists who had helped his soul move from one body to the other and had bided their time to help him build an army.

Rey watches through his eyes.

“I couldn’t do it alone,” he admits, quietly, into the soft skin of her shoulder as he presses his face against it.

“Why did you go alone then, Ben?” her voice is tight, as if she already knows.

“I knew that if I faced him, if I could kill him, he wouldn’t come for you.”

“But you knew that you wouldn’t survive that,” Rey says, a flash of anger flooding her voice as she pulls away to look at him. “You _knew,_ Ben. You knew he would kill you if you went alone, and you went anyway.”

“I came back,” he offers.

“Only because you made a deal, didn’t you?”

“I had to say goodbye to you,” he chokes out, all thoughts of self-preservation forgotten as he hangs his head, “I couldn’t leave you like that. I thought I could but he knew, he knew I wanted to come back to you. It was the only way.”

Rey searches his face as he kneels before her, as he begs for her forgiveness even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. “I won’t do it,” Rey snaps.

“Yes, you will,” he growls. “You will leave with your friends and you will go far away from here.”

“No!” Rey shouts, suddenly standing. She’s radiant - towering over him with fury.

“He needs to believe that I’ve killed you, Rey.”

Rey stares down at him. She looks like hell - her eyes are red and her face is puffy from no sleep, but even so, she’s the most beautiful thing Ben has ever seen. He opens his mouth to say something, anything that resembles an apology for what he’s done.

“If he believes that you’ve killed me, then what?” she asks, “He kills you and takes your place, and I live in a galaxy ruled by him that’s _without you?”_

Ben gives her a wry smile. “You’ve survived without me before. You can do it,” he says. But when he looks at her, he sees that they’ve both been lying. It had hurt so much when he’d cut off the Bond - losing her would be like a gaping wound.

“I don’t want to,” Rey tells him quietly, all fight gone from her voice. “I _can_ survive without you, but I don’t _want to,_ Ben.”

Tentatively, Rey nudges at his mind, asking to open the Bond. To really, truly open it. He lets her in.

Her mind is like a wave that crashes over him - he feels her fear; her regret at having deceived him the moment she realizes she felt something for him; her pain as he’d left her; the absolute, earth-shattering pleasure that he induces; how safe he makes her feel.

Tears fall from his eyes before he realizes it, and he’s weeping into Rey’s shoulder as she sinks to her knees again.

Ben lets the walls of his head and heart fall away - not just the ones he’d constructed hours before, when he’d left her, but the ones that have shielded him his whole life. Opening the Bond in that way feels like breathing again for the first time - as if every thought and feeling he’s ever had, all the doubt and loneliness and grief that they share, it all spills from their minds and drowns them - and it feels like relief. They don’t have to bear the pain of it anymore, because when the Bond is open, they let it go.

It belongs to both of them.

Ben is exhausted, and so is she - but they have to feel this. They have to let the dams burst and decide later if they’re really worth putting up again. Everything they’ve ever felt is so horrifyingly similar that perhaps they have always been one soul in two bodies. Love lost and found and darkness and light and sacrifice and greed and everything good and bad in their lives swirls between them, poured into a pool that only they can swim in.

✹✹✹✹

There’s no telling whose arms move first to circle the other. Rey only knows that finally his arms go around her, and she can’t really tell if he’s speaking out loud or just in her head -

_Cyar’ika, my beloved, my beautiful, fierce girl._

Tears escape her eyes as she clings to him, clutches his shirt and weeps into his chest. His arms - arms that have held her in anger and sadness and through pleasure and pain - are secured around her like a home, warm and safe. Rey quietly laments the months and months they’ve lost keeping each other out, all the long nights that she should have _told_ him how she felt, and instead she kept him out of reach even after she knew in her heart what she felt for him was pure. She had unknowingly been patient, hoping that as the months went by he’d fallen in love with her the way she’d fallen in love with him.

_Love is about patience._

_Choose._

When their lips meet Rey has no thoughts other than ones of him, dragging him closer and closer by his hair and shirt and they’re still on the floor; but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because they could be on the dirt floor of a cell and Rey wouldn’t care - she only needs there to be him.

“Rey,” he whines her name quietly, arms around her waist as she climbs into his lap. “Rey, my love.”

He laughs against her kiss, and she knows that they have to stop, to step outside and decide how they’ll deal with this - but all she wants to do is keep kissing him and never ever stop.

With one last long, lingering kiss, Rey finally pulls back to look at him, into his dark eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, the words tight as they find their way from his throat. “I’m sorry for so many things, but I’m so sorry for the things that people have made you. I’m sorry for the things that I’ve put on you, the things I’ve asked you to be and the mantels I’ve asked you to hold. And I’m sorry that all your life other people have done the same thing. The Resistance wanted you to be a hero; I wanted you to be a ruler. You’re neither of those things.

“I,” Ben stutters, “I _adore_ you for exactly who you are. When everything else is gone and it’s just you, a scrappy little brat from a backwater desert planet who is stronger and smarter than anyone I’ve ever known - I adore that girl. I’m sorry I’ve ever made you think otherwise.”

Rey was crying before, but now tears find their way down her cheeks without stopping, as she listens to his words - someone loves who she is, not what she could be or what they want her to be, and that lays on her soul like a balm.

The only response she can think of is to kiss him, to pour her whole heart into it and clutch him close, projecting her intention of never, ever letting him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Storm Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/818177457291068036/)
> 
> [Rey’s Crown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940092557/)


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to get this up, guys! We're nearing the end!!! :)))))  
> As always, thank you for reading and I love and adore all of your comments<3

Rey and Ben finally pick themselves up off of the floor some ten minutes later, after the worst of the tears have subsided and Rey can breathe without hiccuping. Ben adjusts her crown and takes her hand.

Leia and Luke and Voe sit quietly in the foyer when they emerge, and Rey feels Ben stiffen beside her. She keeps a firm hold on his hand.

“Ben,” Luke stands quietly, approaching his nephew with a soft gaze. “I’m sorry -“

“I know,” Ben says, but it’s gentle. He squeezes Rey’s hand once before letting go, and Rey watches with a tight throat as Ben and Luke step forward to meet each other in the room, devoid of hostility, and embrace each other. Rey smiles a little.

“Let’s talk about what our next move is,” Leia says finally, and she sounds just as choked up as Rey feels.

“Mom,” Ben sighs, leveling her with a gaze that brims with exhaustion. After a moment, Leia nods.

“Go. We’ll be here for a while,” she assures him. “How long did he give you?”

“Seventy-two standard hours,” Ben says.

“Generous,” Luke jokes.

“Go,” Leia says again, and with that, Ben takes Rey’s hand and leads her up the staircase, just like they’d done the night of their wedding.

It’s Rey’s turn to lead him, then, as she pulls him to the ‘fresher and runs the water of the shower, waiting until it’s warm before finally removing her crown and placing it on the sink and letting her hair down. She takes care to remove her dress, and then turns around to face Ben. He watches her with a soft gaze, as if he’d be content to look at her forever.

“I would be,” he replies. Their Bond is blown open so wide that thoughts are exchanging and they’re hardly noticing. Rey smiles gently at him and steps towards him, carefully removing his jacket and shirt away from bruising skin, made black and blue from the events of the past two days. He winces as she peels his shirt off, and it’s strictly clinical almost, getting him naked and into the shower. It’s not that she doesn’t want him, because she _very much_ does, but there’s blood on his shoulder and face and she wants to take care of him first.

They spend a long time under the rushing water, arms around each other and the air smelling citrusy and clean after using the soap. Rey works the shampoo gently through his hair, and in turn, he does the same - his wonderful hands sliding over her body so gently they could barely be there. Rey still has so many questions, but she keeps them quiet for the sake of enjoying this hands skimming over her, through her hair, around her waist.

The absence of the water is shocking, cold air taking its place and seeping into her bones even despite Ben’s arms around her as he squeezes water from her hair. He takes her hand then, leading her back into their spacious bedroom. Someone has brought them dinner, and it sits on their breakfast table with steam still rising. It’s Rey’s turn to pull Ben.

Wrapped in soft robes, they sit, Rey perched on Ben’s lap, since he’s clearly reluctant to let her move too far. They sit in mostly quiet, Rey coaxing Ben to eat even though he doesn’t seem to wish to do so.

His thoughts are repeated apologies for all he’s said and done, for leaving her, and self-deprecation that breaks Rey’s heart.

“Ben,” she says, when they move to their bed. He doesn’t meet her eye. “Ben Solo.”

“Don’t forgive me,” he says quietly with a shake of his head, “Please don’t. Don’t let me hold you - you deserve so much more than me and I -“

“Solo.”

_I don’t even deserve that name._

“Enough,” Rey says, quiet but stern. “So much about what I do or don’t deserve, but have you considered what I _want?”_

He finally looks up to meet her eye.

“I wouldn’t be here - I wouldn’t have _stayed -_ if I didn’t want you just as you are. You accept me that way, why can’t I have you the same?”

“You haven’t been an accomplice to genocide, Rey, or killed your _father -“_

“What we have done doesn’t have to be what we _are,_ Ben. Have you done terrible things? Yes. But do I believe that with the rest of your life you’ll do better? Yes.”

Rey catches his tears with her fingertips.

“I promised you weren’t here to fix me.”

“And I’m not,” Rey assures him, “But love is about being patient - and I _choose_ to be by your side while you fix it yourself.:

Ben looks up at her again and in his eyes, she finds what she’s waited her whole life for - _hope._

“Rey,” he says quietly, reverently, her name like a prayer on his lips, “May I kiss you?”

_You are remarkable, wonderful, breathtaking -_

The first brush of their lips is soft, so undemanding, as if they’re learning each other again for the first time. Rey is careful with the bruises on his body as she touches him, her fingertips fluttering over his shoulders and through his hair and along his jaw. Ben holds her waist tight in his hands, as he’s seated on the edge of the bed and she stands before him, sighing as he trails his mouth from her neck down to her blushing chest. He is gentle and possessive and to his touch, there is a distinct, sensuous quality, as if she is the most magnificent thing he has ever beheld, and all he wants is her pleasure.

As he touches her, Rey finds it hard to breathe - though he’s undressed her before, something about the way he pulls her belt from the robe and lets it slip from her skin holds something darker, as his eyes rove over her like she’s a meal. When she’s naked before him, Ben takes her hand and leads her back on the bed, falling to his knees before her for the second time in just a few hours.

He spreads her legs, just like he had done the first time, his touch skimming up her thighs.

“I want you,” Rey whines, breathless, “Please, just -“

He flicks her clit and she yelps.

“Hush,” he says, no bite to be found in the command. “Let me have you like this.”

 _So pretty, Rey,_ comes through the Bond between them, _Every inch of you, made for me. So wet and soft and warm -_

“Ben!” Rey gasps, giggling a little as he leans in and his lovely tongue slides against her core, drinking from her as if she’s an oasis in the desert, the first water he’s seen in days.

Before, he’d been shier, testing for her reactions and learning the quirks of her body - now, he laps at her like he’s done it all his life, like she’s given him a map of where to touch and kiss and flick his tongue.

He’d offered to be her teacher, once - and somehow he’d made good on that offer without her express knowledge. Though certainly, she’s having _much_ more fun learning this than she did how to twirl a lightsaber.

Ben’s lips wrap around that bundle of nerves and Rey’s back leaves the soft silk sheets, her hands tangled in his dark locks that she tugs without a care of how hard. His long fingers slip inside of her and that spot _\- Maker,_ ** _what_** _is it about that spot?_ \- And Rey feels tears of pleasure in her eyes.

 _That’s it, my love,_ Ben’s voice floods her head, _I can feel you tightening around my touch. Give it to me, please, come for me, cyar’ika -_

The release feels like sinking into something soft, her body weightless, every muscle spasming before ceasing to work as the heat in her stomach blooms to cover her like sunlight.

It’s _beautiful._

Rey tries to catch her breath and fails spectacularly when Ben abruptly stands and grabs her hips, removing his robe with a roll of strong shoulders.

“Say yes, Rey,” he pleads, his hand splayed across her stomach and flicking her clit with his thumb.

“ _Maker,_ Ben, I’m your _wife -_ yes, please, yes -“

He slides inside of her in one quick movement, filling her until her body protests despite her own desire to have more of him, to pull him into her soul.

He feels like coming home.

The angle of their bodies lets him see her - and her to see all of him. Rey loves the way the muscles of his torso ripple with every thrust, how his eyes follow every twist of her body, and especially how his whole, very broad chest flushed red with a blush as he takes her.

It feels so different this time around - with everything between them laid bare. It’s as if they’ve finally settled into the rhythm of each other, like they’re entwined in more than just their bodies.

_I was made for you, for this. Us. Always -_

_Yours._

_I’m yours._

Rey uses every muscle still working in her body to sit up and drag Ben’s face to hers, connecting their lips as soon as she’s close enough to reach. He smiles against her, a soft laugh falling from his lips as Rey holds onto him, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. The heat that settling in her stomach rises to an inferno, and she cries out against him, little whimpers of _please,_ and _Ben,_ and _more._

“Come with me, Ben,” Rey whispers, dragging him closer with her ankles crossed behind his back, begging him to follow her, to be with her.

His sigh of her name is sinful, pretty and deep and so saturated with want that she’s never heard anything like it. She doesn’t have any words left to describe the feeling of the Bond crying when the come together, pulling taut between them like a string with no give and roaring like the waves of the ocean.

Ben falls against her as they lie back on their bed, breathless and tangled together, every inch of them still touching.

Rey’s heart beats rapidly in her chest, warm and so alive.

“Today,” Ben breathes, quietly, as he presses a kiss behind her ear. “Today, you look like the rest of my life.”

✹✹✹✹

It’s well past dark when they finally make their way out of bed again and onto the balcony, Rey wrapped tightly in Ben’s arms as they sit and listen to the waves kiss the stone below.

“I had a dream,” Rey tells him quietly, her face tucked into his neck, “About your grandmother.”

“That so?” Ben asks, distractedly running his fingertips up her spine underneath the shirt she wears, which is actually _his._ He hadn’t gotten around to putting it on before she’d stolen it from his hands and thrown it over her body.

“Mhmm,” Rey hums, snuggling closer to him against the breeze that comes off the lake. “She said that your grandfather has been trying to reach you. But you haven’t been listening.”

“I’ve sort of been listening,” Ben defends, but it’s half-hearted. Rey raises a delicate eyebrow at him. “Okay, not really.”

“Let him in, Ben,” Rey whispers softly, “Let them in.”

“I’m trying,” he says, and it’s sincere.

Heavy silence settles over them as their minds both drift to the impending fight that they’ll face.

Ben knows in his heart what has to be done. He knows that now, more than ever, is when he will have to turn to the people he has hurt most for help.

“Rey?” Ben asks suddenly, a thought dawning on him. “Where is General Hux?”

And oh, the _grin_ that spreads across her face is positively wicked. Ben pokes her in the side. “I’ve no idea. Somewhere I never have to see his face again, hopefully,” she tells him.

“You, my little Jedi, are particularly wretched,” Ben mutters, tightening his fingers around her waist until she giggles, a sweet sound that carries over the mountains and across the lake.

“I’m not a Jedi,” Rey retorts, with a laugh.

“No, you’re far too debauched -“

“Ben.”

He lifts his head from underneath the curtain of her hair, peering into hazel eyes that sparkle in the light of the moons.

“I’m not a Jedi,” she repeats. “Not like those before us were. We can never be them.”

She catches the tendrils of confusion through the Bond as he looks at her.

“When this is over, and it _will_ end,” Rey says, shifting to place her hands on his face, “It will be something new. No light, no dark.”

Something settles in his chest to hear her say that, something that perhaps he’s always known, but didn’t have the words for. Slowly, Ben nods, turning his head to place a kiss into her palm, still maintaining traces of her time on Jakku in the form of small callouses and perpetually rough patches of skin. He loves them.

“What did you do with my lightsaber?” He questions. Rey tilts her head.

“I think it’s still in the throne room. Why?”

Ben calls the communique device into his hand with the use of the Force, pressing the screen to find the channel that he’s never actually used before.

“Ben? Is everything alright?” Leia’s voice comes through the speaker.

“Everything’s fine, mom,” he assures her, as Rey sits up on his lap and grins down at him. “I need you to do something for me.”

✹✹✹✹

The morning presents itself over the treetops in the form of orange sunlight, and Rey has to bodily drag her husband from the bed.

“The sooner we start, the sooner it will end,” she tells him quietly, when he wraps his arms around her waist and holds her close, hands skimming up her bare back and lips trailing across her collarbone.

Eventually, he follows her up and quietly they dress, as the sun finds its place a little higher in the sky. Rey smiles a little bit as she watches Ben stand at the mirror, razor in hand, and thinks how far they’ve come since the morning of their wedding day. How he’s even more beautiful to her now than he was then. He smiles at her in the mirror.

“You know,” Ben says, tapping the razor against the water rushing in the sink, “My mother used to do that all the time. She’d stand in the doorway and talk to my father while he shaved. It seemed like it was the only time he was a captive audience.”

Rey gives him a soft smile. “Blue or white?” she asks then.

Ben seems to think for a moment, turning to look at her as he wipes shaving cream from his face, studying her.

“White,” he answers.

✹✹✹✹

He shouldn’t have said white. He should _not_ have said white.

Ben waits by the door for Rey, the voices from downstairs steadily growing louder as the sun rises. When she steps out of her closet, he thinks maybe he’s stopped breathing.

White, with _two_ leg slits, and fabric that falls like a cape over her shoulders. But what makes it striking is the amount of skin on display at her torso - vine-like embroidery holds the dress in place around her waist, but the front bares the space between her breasts and subsequently, _all_ of the little pink love bites he’d left on her skin in the last few hours.

“Rey,” her name is half a groan and half a sigh falling from his lips, as she moves to stand at his side. They look like the perfect contrast, with him covered head to toe in fitted black, and her in striking white fabric that drapes around her like a cloud.

Strangely enough, despite the purity of the color, she looks _powerful._ As if nothing in the galaxy could touch her.

She smiles at him in a way that makes his stomach do flips.

“Shall we?” she asks, tucking her hand into his crooked arm.

And to the war room, they descend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Rey’s Dress cause she’s feelin’ SPICY](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1688918598404037/)


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> guess WHAT YA'll!!! It's my BIRTHDAY! :)   
> I promise that I will answer all of your asks soon (after I am drunk probably)  
> Please enjoy this chapter! We are nearing the end and I am SO HONORED that you have stuck with me through this! I love you all! <3

They descend the stairs into utter chaos. If Poe had been yelling yesterday, he’s practically _screaming_ now, and to top it off, Finn and Rose have arrived, along with a number of Resistance members, and the First Order Officers are _less than happy_ about it. Leia sits quietly in the fray, just like she’d done when Rey had walked into the room yesterday, only this time Luke is throwing his hands around in discussion with Voe, who spots them coming down the stairs and sends Rey a pleading look.

 _What have we just walked into?_ Ben thinks, glancing sideways at her.

 _It’s called aggressive negotiations, between a bunch of people who don’t seem to like each other,_ Rey shoots back, delighted to catch the lopsided smile that threatens to appear across his face.

Leia sees them and begins to attempt to get Luke’s attention, her voice slowly rising louder and louder over the roar. When that doesn’t work, she looks back to Rey and Ben with a raised eyebrow.

“Enough!” Beside her, Ben’s voice comes out somewhere between a growl and a shout, and all noise ceases at the command. “Sit. All of you.”

With the patrons of the room finally quiet and seated, Ben carefully leads Rey down the remainder of the stairs and guides her to the front of the room, where instead of finding her seat on the throne, she perches on the steps. Rey watches in mild amusement as Ben begins to pace the room, one arm behind his back and the other hand folded halfway over that very luscious mouth, that had been on her not even a few hours ago -

 _I’m thinking,_ he tells her, _You’re making it difficult._

If anyone else in the room catches her blush, they don’t say anything.

“One at a time,” Ben begins, “Each of you is going to tell me your thoughts, and you are _not_ going to interrupt each other, _or_ go on any tangents. Understood?” Murmurs of acquiescence fill the room.

“Excellent,” Rey states, “Luke, you can begin.”

Dutifully, the old Jedi steps into the middle of the room, and Ben continues to pace around him. “Here’s what we know about the Emperor. Many years ago, aboard the second Death Star, Darth Vader pushed Lord Sidious into the exploding core reactor. However, after a long night of meditation and communing with ghosts -“

“ _Maker,”_ General Griss mutters.

“What did I say about interruptions?” Ben snaps, looking sideways at the General, whose mouth shuts comically fast.

“The prevailing theory is this,” Luke continues, a glint in his eye, “The Force is a living thing inside each and every soul of a Force user. When the body dies, the soul continues to live on. In the era of the Republic, researchers and scientists, in league with the Jedi Order, experimented with moving Force souls from one body to another. They were successful - although after the fall of the Jedi Order, much of the information was lost or destroyed, and it was assumed that nothing more came from it. Palpatine had knowledge of this, and, knowing that eventually he would die, _stashed -_ for lack of better term - a spare clone on the Sith world of Exegol, virtually untraceable unless one knows the coordinates.”

Everyone in the room listens quietly, carefully. Even Ben has stopped his pacing and laced both hands behind his back, scowling down at something only he seems to see.

“Why wait thirty years?” Poe asks, looking at Luke.

“Why not?” Ben answers. “Had he publicized a return after the Empire fell, he’d have been hunted and taken care of. His forces were scattered, so he retreated and bided his time. Exegol appears on no star charts, and it can’t be reached without the express knowledge of its coordinates. And further, his forces are hidden beneath the surface. A massive storm covers the whole planet -“

“I’m sorry, a what?” Rey snaps, from her place on the steps, as she sees the memory of the storm flicker through Ben’s head. “Did you fly yourself into a lightning storm on a hunch, Ben Solo?”

From a few feet away, Leia snickers.

For a moment, it looks like he’ll argue with her, but finally, he sighs. “Yes, I did. It wasn’t my best moment. Now, as I was saying, because Snoke was his cipher, no one suspected Palpatine to be behind any of it, just like the Sith hid their existence from the Jedi during the Republic Era. Meanwhile, he was there, as Snoke.”

“And bothering you every step of the way,” Luke sighs, with a shake of his head as he studies his nephew. “When you killed Snoke -“

“When you _what?”_ General Griss cries, leaning forward towards Ben as if he plans to tumble at him.

“Oh, stop,” Ben states, rolling his eyes, “What? You really all thought _Luke Skywalker_ snuck onto a star destroyer and killed the Supreme Leader? That’s what you really thought?”

If Rey was chuckling before, she’s nearly full-out laughing now at the sight of Ben’s exasperated expression, trained on the remaining members of the First Order’s Supreme Council.

“Back to the matter at hand, gentlemen,” Leia states, and with another sigh, Ben turns back to Luke.

“Leia, your thoughts?” Rey asks.

“We should decide if it’s more worth it to fight here, on our own ground, or Exegol,” Leia states.

“Who _exactly_ is fighting, here?” Finn questions.

“All of us, obviously,” Luke states.

“Woah, I didn’t sign up for _another_ war after we just _barely_ finished one!” Poe says, and then, all hell breaks loose once again. Instead of shouting, Ben turns on his heel and makes his way back to Rey, allowing the members of the First Order and Resistance shout at each other from across the room. He plops down next to her, long legs tucked up. Rey turns her face towards him.

“So, _this_ is what they were fighting about,” Ben mutters, watching the people in the room with once again a critical eye. Rey reaches out a comforting hand, sliding her fingers through his as they watch friends and enemies bicker, both reluctant to be on the same side.

“You haven’t told me how you plan to win against him,” Rey reminds him, watching as he twists her ring around and around on her finger - it’s her favorite nervous tick of his.

“Together,” he says, as though it’s the simplest concept in the galaxy. Rey quirks an eyebrow. “Our connection. I think, if we don’t reveal it right away, it will catch him off guard. It will take concentration, but I have a theory that perhaps we can feed off of each other’s power.”

Slowly, Rey nods in understanding and eventual agreement. “Yes, I think that you’re right.”

“We make a good team, you know, when we try.”

“Well, _I’m_ always trying,” Rey jokes, and through the Bond she feels a tendril of his amused exasperation at her, as he still watches the people in the room bicker. Slowly, an expression akin to wickedness crosses over his face, and in one abrupt movement, Rey finds herself sprawled on top of him, squeaking with indignance as he pulls her into his arms and slides a hand into her loose hair, capturing her mouth with his.

She’s aware of the other people in the room - _acutely aware,_ actually - but he _does something_ to her, something that makes her forget all reason and open her mouth to allow him space to taste her. It’s hot and intoxicating, like it always is, and he tastes like coffee and something that’s just him, a taste that she loves more and more every time she kisses him.

A throat clears in the room.

Ben presses one last soft kiss to her jaw.

“Now that you’re all done arguing,” Ben states, shifting Rey so that she’s perched on his lap. It was such a wicked, self-indulgent plan - and Rey hardly cares. “What are the resources that we have at our disposal to deal with this?”

He’d just been kissing her within an inch of her life, and now he’s back to playing the diplomat in a strikingly good way. It must be his family history. Rey feels her entire chest flush, no doubt enhancing the love bites that already litter the space between her breasts, exposed by the dress.

“Supreme Leader, we have all of the First Order’s resources at your disposal, obviously,” General Griss states, the words scratching from his throat as if he’s afraid that speaking too loudly will send Ben into a rage.

“The Resistance doesn’t have much, but I _guess_ you’ll get whatever we’ve got,” Poe sighs, “Although, can I go on record saying that I want to be paid back for this in the form of potentially a very large plot of land and basically anything that I want, ever, because this is _definitely_ way beyond our scope of operations -“

“Dameron, you can have whatever you want if you promise to stop trying to kill me,” Ben huffs, lifting Rey up in his arms as he stands before carefully setting her on the ground.

“I have _never -“_

Both Rey and Ben level him with forms of the same gaze.

“Alright, fine, fine,” Poe sighs, tossing his hands up in the air.

A moment of silence stretches across the room.

“We should let them come here,” Leia says finally, interrupting the silence with a distinct tone of finality and gentle command.

“Agreed,” Rey replies, “But, not near the city.”

“In the valleys,” Ben states, and slowly, the whole room murmurs their agreement.

“How long do we have?” someone asks.

“By now? 60 standard hours, at least,” Ben states, “Take care of preparations. While the Empress and I are gone, General Organa is in charge.”

Every member of the First Order Council opens their mouth to protest. Ben holds up a hand, ceasing all sound that might follow.

“ _My mother is in charge.”_

✹✹✹✹

“Where are we going exactly?” Rey asks him as he takes her hand and leads her from the room and into the hallway, holding her tightly as he guides them towards the courtyard they’ve allocated for training.

“We’ve got some work to do,” he tells her, knowing that it’s cryptic, but wanting to avoid _over-explaining_ what he’s about to try to do.

“With?” Rey questions, but follows him willingly anyway.

Leia had set their lightsabers out in the courtyard and Luke had been the one to take them apart, and now Rey and Ben stand in front of the weapons, scattered in pieces.

“Ben?” Rey questions, raising a thin eyebrow at him. “Is that what the crystal inside your saber looks like?”

Next to the in-tact crystal of Anakin’s saber, sits Ben’s - cracked and fracturing into pieces, practically shivering as it attempts to contain the power it holds.

“Yes,” Ben sighs, “I’m going to heal it, and you’re going to cleanse my grandfather’s. Without time to find your own crystal, we’ll have to hope that one bends to you.”

“How do we do that?” Rey questions, glancing up at him with those lovely eyes.

“Excellent question,” Ben says, “I’m hoping some ghosts will talk to us.”

Turns out, the ghosts are in an agreeable mood.

The moment Ben sits down and assumes a meditative position - something he hasn’t done in _years -_ he hears a familiar voice. The man who comes to stand before him is nearly unrecognizable to Ben, but he knows him all the same.

“You are stubborn,” the man says. “You get that from me.”

“I think I get that from _all of you,_ truthfully,” Ben tells his grandfather, who offers him a sideways smirk that reminds Ben so much of Han.

“Yes, I suppose we’re all stubborn in one way or another,” Anakin says, “ _She_ is stubborn, too.”

From inside this strange plane of the Force, Ben looks to where Anakin is pointing - Rey sits on the ground, meditating like he’s doing, and they’re separated by a watery, shimmering veil. Ben nods quietly.

“That’s for opening up, finally,” Anakin says then, “I couldn’t get to you.”

“I know. And I’m sorry,” Ben tells him, something like grief seizing his chest as he looks at his grandfather, now seeing the man differently than he had before. “I wish I could take back what I’ve done -“

“You can’t,” Anakin says sternly, “But you can spend the rest of your life trying to do better. Listen to her - she’s smarter than you.”

He tilts his head towards Rey.

“Now, sit down, grandson. We’ve got a crystal to heal.”

✹✹✹✹

Rey has positively _no idea_ what she’s doing - and yet, she somehow _does._

When she picks the crystal up in her hands, it hums with power, and she finds that it’s easy to slip her eyes closed and slide into a trance, asking the Force for guidance. It comes in the form of someone she’s never seen before.

“Hello, Rey.”

Well, she’s never _seen_ him - but she’s definitely _heard him._

“Hi, again,” she greets, recognizing the lilted accent belonging to the man she’d spoken to on the balcony in Coruscant, when she was presented with the idea of marrying Ben. How far away that moment seems.

“My name is Master Kenobi,” The man greets, “Known later as Ben Kenobi, Obi-Wan to my friends.”

“Master Kenobi - you were Anakin’s mentor, right?” Rey asks, and the older man nods.

“Yes. Your husband bears striking resemblances to him in many ways,” Obi-Wan states. “But, it’s all the good things. Anakin was also quite reckless.”

“That’s putting it kindly,” Rey sighs, glancing over at Ben where he meditates, the Force separating them with a shimmering wall.

“Now, Rey, I believe we have work to do,” Obi-Wan states, sitting down across from her and gesturing to the crystal in her hands. “The first step in cleansing a crystal: you must first understand how it works. A crystal responds to the Force-user who it calls to, and so you have to form a bond with it. Open your mind, Rey. Find the balance between the light and the dark, and step into it.”

✹✹✹✹

“Ready?” Ben asks, as they stand together in the courtyard, newly-constructed sabers in hand. The sky is casting glows of orange and pink across their faces as the suns dip below the trees. The Force sings softly around them, responding to their excitement and anxiety, asking to come out, to be noticed.

“Ready,” Rey tells him.

Her lightsaber is a perfect imitation of her staff, ready to ignite two separate blades, and Ben has kept his crossguard design.

Their hands move as if strings are manipulating them, raising at the same moment and thumbing igniters to produce the beams of light that come together with a blinding clash, lighting the whole courtyard.

Two gray sabers meet in the middle, brilliant and sparkling.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends!!! thank you SO much for all of your birthday wishes! Sorry for taking so long, but we're back on track now. Enjoy!!

“Everyone in the surrounding city is being evacuated,” Leia states, “They should be out of range within the next few hours.”

“Good,” Rey sighs, looking across the table at the General, who is more cheerful than Rey thinks really any of them should be, but perhaps that has to do with the fact that her son is sitting at the head of the table and for once _not_ glaring in her direction.

“How did the lightsabers turn out?” Finn asks, shoveling another spoonful of food into his mouth and attempting to speak around it.

“They look _awesome,”_ Luke answers for her, a mischevious little glint in his eye. “Although, I’m surprised they turned gray. I thought perhaps they’d go purple.”

“I’m not surprised,” Leia says with a shake of her head.

“There’s only one Jedi in history who had a gray lightsaber,” Luke begins telling Finn.

“Ahsoka Tano,” Rey says, “Obi-Wan told me.”

Leia’s head snaps up.

“You spoke to him?”

“He helped me build the saber,” Rey explains, blushing a little under the scrutiny.

“Do you know -“ Leia starts to say, only to be interrupted by Ben finishing her sentence.

“That I’m named after him?” Ben says, and Rey turns her head to find her husband lounging back in his chair, the cuts on his face having finally healed a bit over the course of the day, and now he just looks roguish and annoyingly handsome. He smirks at her.

“My hope,” Leia says quietly, and the humor rescinds from the moment, leaving behind a solemn, quiet contemplativeness that Rey sees pass through the family in the room. Her family. Her hope.

“So, about that land that I’m getting,” Poe states, thoroughly interrupting the moment. It would bother Rey more, but Leia bursts out laughing and Ben smiles and she finds that she can’t do anything but smile along with them.

✹✹✹✹

“So, in the wake of our impending doom,” Rey says as they’re standing in their bathroom, her slowly sinking down in bath water that smells like flowers and threatens to overwhelm all of his senses. Ben turns from his spot at the sink to look at his wife, whose eyes flutter closed as she slips into the water. “I think that we should -“

“Make love for the next forty-eight hours straight? Yes, me too,” Ben jokes, peeling off his shirt to join Rey in the water. She narrows her eyes at him but there’s a smile on her face as he wraps her up in his arms.

“I was going to say throw a party.”

The confusion must show on his face, because Rey reaches up and brushes her thumb between his brow to smooth away the lines, gently trailing her fingertips across his cheek with a smile. She doesn’t go on to explain any more, and she doesn’t really need to - there are things about Rey that Ben has learned, and this is one of them. Everyone she loves is in one place, and she wants them all to be together, before they may never be again.

“The Festival of Lights _is_ technically supposed to be going on,” Ben tells her. “By now, everyone should have settled near Dee’ja Peak. We could still have the festival.”

“Oh, Ben!” Rey exclaims, abruptly sitting up in his arms and smiling widely. “I’d _love_ that.”

He will give _anything_ to make sure that she _always_ looks like this, the way she does now, glowing and lovely and purely happy. It’s all he wants for her, for the rest of time. And if his time is coming to an end, he’s glad to have had these moments with her, to have seen her smiles and hear the way she laughs, and to know that he doesn’t deserve the way she looks at him.

 _Of course you deserve it,_ she tells him, leaning in to press a gentle kiss to his temple.

_And you deserve everything. Anything you could ever want -_

_I just want you._

✹✹✹✹

“I still am trying to understand _why_ you think hosting this Festival is still a good idea after what happened at the last one,” Poe says, as they make their way over the mountains in a transport. Naboo passes below, lush and green and teeming with life, and Rey’s heart aches a little bit.

“Because I’ve never seen the Festival,” she says, “And if this is our last night, I want it to be fun.”

“That’s so morbid,” Poe sighs, hands on his hips as he stands beside her and watches as they crest the top of the mountain, and Dee’ja Peak looms in the distance. Once a small settlement, Dee’ja Peak has been transformed into a bustling village, with newly erected structures to house the evacuees from Theed. While not as grand as the Festival might have been back at the capitol, it’s beautiful nonetheless, with bright lanterns _everywhere._

It’s the loveliest thing Rey has ever seen. As the sky darkens, the lanterns take on a golden glow, not unlike stars - but softer. When they land and begin to make their way up the peak, their path is sprinkled with petals of red and pink flowers,the hem of her icy-blue dress kicking them up as she walks. She clings unabashedly to Ben’s arm - Ben, who is wearing _blue._ Dark blue, of course, with matching trousers and a brocade fabric that’s stiff when Rey wraps her fingers around his arm, but the color perfectly offsets the silver crown that sits atop his head. It’s spiked, much like hers, but understated, because he told Nova - again - that he hates crowns.

Rey thinks he looks handsome.

He must hear that thought, because he blushes as she looks up at him, silhouetted against the dying light. Rey feels a warm, shivery feeling start in her chest as he meets her eye, the corner of his lips quirking up in some semblance of a smile.

They’re lead up the mountain to the balcony, where the valley and most of the town sits below them.

“That’s insane,” Finn whistles as he approaches the edge, looking down at the twinkling sea of lights.

“Do you know why Naboo celebrates the Festival of Light?” Luke asks, prompting the whole group of them to turn and look at him, Rey and Ben included.

“Wait, I know this!” Poe announces, “It’s a commemoration of Naboo joining the Republic.”

“Yes,” Luke says, “But it’s also the celebration of a New Year. Originally, there were nineteen days of celebration across the galaxy dedicated to the forming of the Republic, with the final day being the New Year celebration.”

“So, what is it now?” Rose asks.

Luke gives her a one-shouldered shrug. “I suppose it’s a habit, now. Just something pretty.”

Rey doesn’t know what type of answer she’d been hoping for, but it was somehow more climactic than _that._

“Well,” Poe sighs, “We can just say they’re celebrating the last night of our lives.”

It’s said with a certain joking lilt in his voice, but no one seems to feel like laughing.

✹✹✹✹

Ben stares out into the valley, the mountains the only landscape separating the sea of lanterns and the rapidly appearing ocean of stars. They look as if they might touch, if not for the line of jagged peaks.

He feels Rey leave his side and something about his mother flits through the Bond, and he finds himself staring, alone, at the crowd of people, their laughter rising with life as they night darkens. There’s a strange, hollow feeling in his chest that he’s frustrated to say he doesn’t recognize, as if there’s something waiting to be put into place inside of him, something that will make sense only when he sees it.

Ben finds that his life is drawing down to these moments, to the way he’s breathing the air and finding that it holds traces of Rey’s scent and the smell of life, rather than decay. It seems unfair that he’s allowed to feel this way, after all he’s done - that he’s allowed to _enjoy_ this. Perhaps if Rey hadn’t appeared, he’d have ended up exactly like the Emperor - alone, on a distant, dying planet surrounded by lightning, with nothing but his mistakes to look back on.

He feels when Voe comes to stand beside him, quiet and contemplative, very much the way he remembers her being in Luke’s academy. Ben hasn’t dwelled much on their time together, perhaps because it hurts to remember what he’s done.

Only his ego stands in the way, and that’s a fairly poor excuse.

“I’m sorry, Voe,” Ben says quietly, knowing that there are a million things he wants to say and ask that perhaps he’s never going to have time for, so he figures that that’s the best place to start if he gets nothing else.

“I know, Ben,” Voe sighs, twirling the end of her with braid in her fingers as she leans on the railing. Suddenly, they’re young again, and she’s scowling at something he said while they meditate, Tai always nearby and laughing at the both of them. Ben’s heart gets caught in his throat.

“Could you ever forgive me?” He finds himself asking, not because he needs her to in this moment, but because he has a selfish need for validation, for someone else’s honesty. He just wants an answer, no matter what it is.

“What will you say if I told you I’m not sure I can?” Voe asks, turning her head to meet his eye.

“I’d say you’re justified,” he tells her, “I was the end of everything you loved - all of you.”

Memories of the night Luke tried to kill him replay in his nightmares often, now, and he sees Voe and Tai’s faces as they beg him not to go, to stop him, to force him to face what he had done when he crumbled the hut and burned the temple. The screams of his friends haunt him, though he’d taken care not to hurt them on that night, though that doesn’t excuse the damage he’d done later, as Kylo Ren.

Beside him, Voe is silent, the lights from the valley painting her dark face in flickering gold. Then, “I have a daughter.”

Ben’s head snaps to face her.

“Tai,” she says quietly, an answer to the question he hadn’t gotten to ask, now that he’s practically choking. “Her name is Cora. She’s Force-sensitive, obviously. Very. Tai and I didn’t know what to do at first - how were we going to raise a child with the same powers that nearly destroyed us? What would we teach her?”

Voe sighs a little, a certain type of softness coming over her features. “Since I’ve been here with Rey, I’ve decided, _yes._ The Force doesn’t belong to any of us, and so what she decides to do with it will be for her to choose.”

Ben startles a little when he feels tears prick at his eyes. He imagines a little girl with Tai’s brown eyes and maybe Voe’s hair, bouncy with curls, maybe ice-colored, like hers, or maybe something different.

“And so, Ben Solo, I forgive you. Not for myself, but for her,” Voe says quietly, reaching over and taking Ben’s hand where it rests on the balcony rail and squeezing.

“How do you know I’m sorry?” He asks, tearfully, _stupidly._

“Because I know Ben Solo, and Ben Solo’s heart is better than he believes it is,” Voe states, the hint of sass returning to her tone as she straightens up and tosses her long braid over her shoulder, leveling him with a stare that could rival his mother’s, or Rey’s.

“Why are you really here?” he asks her, “Go back to your daughter.”

“I’ll go back to my daughter when you find your voice again, Ben,” she says, stern and serious, “It takes a great deal of bravery, but you’ll be surprised how loud you can be when you begin speaking the truth.”

✹✹✹✹

When the night becomes pitch black, the fireworks begin. Rey stands in Ben’s arms and watches as tendrils of light explode in the sky, in varying colors of pink and blue and lilac and white and gold, showering sparks down onto the cheering crowd below.

There’s a solemness to it, as if everyone on the balcony is acutely aware that this is the end to something and it’s as if the Force is trembling, ready the assault against it that will come when the morning light appears.

The voice of Palpatine has not returned, but Rey feels the dark presence all the same, and she’s sure the whole galaxy can feel it, too. For now, she leans back against Ben’s chest as he holds her, arms folded around her whole body as if he could keep her there, and she may let him. She folds her head into the crook of his shoulder, breathing in the dark, spicy scent that always lingers on him. He drops a soft kiss against her hair, careful to avoid the spikes of her crown.

“Rey,” he says her name and it’s like a roll of thunder, rumbling in his chest and against her whole body. _I have to tell you -_

“Not yet,” Rey tells him, almost desperately. “Tell me tomorrow. Tell me when we have the rest of our lives to say it again and again.”

Behind her, a sound comes from Ben’s throat that’s almost like a cry, and she knows tears have hitched in his throat, digging their claws into his chest like they’re doing to hers, as he leans down and hides his face in her shoulder.

“If we survive this,” Ben whispers, choking back the words, “Then I will tell you every minute of every day, until I die.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

✹✹✹✹

The transport is quiet as they make their way back to the villa. The members of the First Order and Resistance who’d chosen to stay and prepare the battleground are still up and moving when they land, hauling tanks of fuel and power converters onto gear ships.

Rey can hardly say goodnight to her friends, for fear the words won’t come out, so she just hugs them instead before following Ben up the stairs to their room, her hand clasped in his and holding tight.

The moment the door closes behind them, the Bond floods open again, and there’s a certain desperation with which Rey rips his jacket from his body and steps out of her shoes, their hands working in tandem to remove crowns and undo buttons and find naked skin, all while their lips refuse to part. They stumble over Rey’s dress and nearly fall into the bed, the night air tight with tension and raising goosebumps on their bodies as Ben picks her up by the waist and sets her back on the pillows, breathless. Some thoughts of her beauty come across the Bond, but she hardly pays attention. She reaches with greedy hands for him, pulling him down across her and quietly asking for the things that only he can give her.

She gets drunk off the feeling of his mouth on her skin, tracing a path from her jaw to her breasts, down her stomach, and over her hips until finally he leans in and kisses her, deep and hot, and Rey keens quietly as his tongue slips over her. The air around them is warm and chilling at the same time, a stickiness to her skin that only comes from sweat despite the way she shivers as the breeze comes through the open balcony doors. Rey finds herself wishing they never had to leave this bed, never have to get up and face another terror, to stay and let there be just _them,_ for once.

No Force, no Resistance or First Order, no Kylo Ren or the Last Jedi - just Rey and Ben.

It’s a dream that keeps slipping through her fingers every time she reaches out to touch it.

Ben nips at the inside of her thigh, _come back to me, cyar’ika,_ and then he’s crawling up her body and Rey is gripping him close, tight enough that she can feel his heartbeat against her chest as he slides inside her. Their breaths and heartbeats sync and their Bond hums with life, a shivering, golden thread between them as they cling to each other.

 _Make love to me,_ Rey whispers through the open channel of their Bond, sinking into the feeling of the soft bed and his strong arms and the smell of him all around her, his lips on her cheek, his gasp in her ear -

Abrupt, hot tears spring to Rey’s eyes and she brushes her fingertips along the skin of his back and torso, wishing she could take away all of the scars that linger there, to stitch back together the skin with something sweeter this time, something that will stay healed. Light pours from their fingertips and lips when they touch, and Rey has never been surer that she’s found a home with Ben Solo. Not a perfect one, but a shape that’s solid and clear.

And she will fight to hell and back for it, for this thing that they’ve created that’s somehow so delicate and so strong at the same time, built on nothing in a way that has made it everything.

Rey will fight for what she believes in like she always has, but she finds that she has other things to fight for now, too. She has a home to fight for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The inspiration for the festival comes from this photo!](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/848858229748336018/)
> 
> [Blue Dress](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/67061481940127225/)
> 
> [Ice Crown](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/682717624744127743/)


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hooo hoooooo! the fight begins!   
> Thank you for sticking with me, we're nearing the end!   
> ALSO, I'm on twitter! Follow me and say hi because i need friends! @kwritesfanfic

They don’t go to sleep. They lie awake all night, a strange, humming awareness cutting through any potential tiredness they may feel as the sun begins to climb higher in the sky. Rey lays with her arms wrapped around Ben’s waist, her head pillowed on his chest as he traces circles on her back, occasionally turning his chin to press a soft kiss to her head.

“What do you think will happen today?” she asks finally, quiet and barely-there, not wanting to disrupt the peace of the moment. Ben sighs a little.

“I think that we can beat him.”

It doesn’t necessarily answer her question, but she finds herself nodding in response, curling a little closer to him and breathing him in, tears springing to her eyes at the thought of leaving this.

“Rey?”

She hums.

“Back when our connection first opened, on Ahch-To, what did you see when we touched?”

Rey’s eyes flutter open and she looks out the window, at the sparkling sun and the lake rippling with the breeze, and thinks. She hasn’t revisited the vision in a long time, not since they’ve been married. It’s of course been in the back of her mind, but she hasn’t actively considered the visions until now.

“I saw light,” Rey says quietly, “But not Force light. Actual light. And a meadow somewhere, and -“

She chokes the words out a little, the vision becoming clearer as she remembers.

“I’ll show you,” she tells him.

Through their Bond, Rey releases the images that she’s held onto over the time they’ve been together: indeed, the meadow, and a child with dark curls trotting towards a lake; the two of them, next to each other on a bed, Ben’s hair threaded with a little bit of silver; a wedding band on his finger; sparring - where she hadn’t seen the colors of their lightsabers in the original vision, she imagines now the gray that they’ve both been given; and finally, the halls of an Old Republic building, Rey in red and Ben in dark blue.

She sees now, how and why she had believed they’d be on the same side, thought that he’d join her - and she sees how she may have been wrong. None of the visions tell her that they’ve chosen any side, just that whatever side they’re on, they’re _together._

“I’ll show you mine,” Ben whispers.

First, it’s her, laying next to him as the sun comes up in the morning; then, a picnic by a lake, like the one in her vision; a dance at a ball, her in a glittering gown; Rey, sipping tea with a child on her hip, dressed in a black gown and the girl’s little fingers playing with the dangling earring she wears; and then, the same hall that she’d seen in her vision, and she’s still dressed in red. Finally, the visions flutter to an end with an image of them, standing outside on a balcony, their arms around each other and Ben’s lips finding hers.

 _Of course,_ they had both assumed they’d turn, and they’d both been wrong.

Rey finds herself giggling into his chest, clutching him tighter as the image of that little girl who’d played with her jewelry, and the picnic, and how _soft_ he’d looked.

“We’ll win, Rey,” Ben says quietly. “Together.”

“Together,” she assures him.

By the time the sun has removed most traces of dark from the room, they’ve made love again before reluctantly leaving their bed, and Rey goes about digging through her closet to find what she’s looking for. There’s a tense silence in the air, the Force vibrating like the beginnings of an earthquake, or a lightning storm, static and electric.

Finally, she uncovers the black fabrics she’d been looking for.

Black leggings, high boots, long sleeves that cross over her thumbs, and draped fabric that is reminiscent of her old rags on Jakku. A black belt that has spaces built in for knives, her lightsaber - and a thigh holster for a blaster. When Rey steps out of her closet, she sees that Ben has dressed as well, and a very old-looking blaster is strapped to his back.

“Where’s that from?” Rey asks, tracing over the worn handle.

Ben seems to sigh, and he swallows thickly before responding. “My dad,” he chokes out, and Rey feels a pang in her chest as she wraps her arms around his middle and presses a kiss to his broad shoulder.

“He loved you, Ben,” she says quietly, and he nods.

“I know,” he replies, and gently squeezes her arm.

Hands clasped, they head down to their friends.

✹✹✹✹

“Ready when you are, Your Majesties,” Poe says, opening the hangar doors to reveal the Falcon and the rest of the fighter ships, Ties and X-Wings alongside each other in a weird mismatch of materials.

“Ben,” for a moment, the way his name is said chills him, because it’s so much like the way Han had said it that day on Starkiller Base, and Ben is half-expecting that he’ll see his father’s weathered face the moment he turns. But instead, he sees the face of Lando Calrissian, equally weathered and though the trademark smirk is missing, his dark eyes are soft enough that Ben doesn’t necessarily fear that he’s going to be punched, though he probably deserves it.

“Uncle Lando,” he greets, squeezing Rey’s hand in his as he turns to face his father’s old friend.

Ben isn’t sure what he expects, but it’s not the way that Lando throws his arms around him and yanks him in for a hug, squeezing him tight for a long moment. Ben lets himself enjoy it, lets himself be reminded of a time when he was shorter than the man in front of him, breathing in the smell of whiskey and expensive Core World cologne. He clears his throat when they part, hoping that the tears in his eyes don’t decide to show.

“I’m sorry,” he tells Lando, the words coming out broken and quiet.

“I know, kid,” he says, “I know.”

“Calrissian,” Leia greets, and the smile that Ben remembers from childhood breaks out over Lando’s face.

“Princess.”

Ben watches as they hug, greet each other again after so many years.

“Who’s flying the Falcon?” Rey asks.

“Well, _technically_ it belongs to Ben,” Leia says, and he promptly shakes his head.

“Think it’s more Rey’s now, actually,” he tells her, and she breaks out into a wide grin, but it only lasts a moment.

“I don’t think we should fly it. Lando and Chewie should. We’ll have to be on the ground, not in the air,” Rey says, with a twinge of regret in her voice. Ben nods.

“The odds that we’re really gonna win this are pretty slim, I gotta tell ya -“ Poe begins saying as they disperse, headed towards their fighters and the Falcon. Ben stops short, turning around to look at the man he’s known his whole life, easily the most annoying person he knows, who used to relentlessly tease him about his ears when they both were children and following Leia around like ducklings. He thinks that maybe after this, they’ll be friends.

“Dameron,” Ben sighs, looking down at the man and finding a lot of pleasure in the fact that he’s taller than the pilot. “Never tell me the odds.”

From the ramp of the Falcon, Leia grins.

✹✹✹✹

They reach the battleground amidst a certain kind of organized chaos, one that only comes with battle preparation.

“Supreme Leader,” Admiral Griss appears as they make their way off the Falcon, the dreadnought and star destroyers looming above them, casting shadows on the otherwise sunny ground. “We await your command.”

“Good, I was beginning to think you’d forgotten that I’m in charge,” Ben states, and he feels Rey pricking at his mind with laughter.

 _Stop rolling your eyes,_ she tells him.

_You’re one to talk, Jedi._

The Upsilon-class command shuttle is already on the ground, along with the First Order’s all-terrain scout transports, the Resistance X-Wings, and past that, rows and rows of stormtroopers. In the sky, ships of every kind. Ben cocks his head back and surveys the sheer size of the fleet, and notes that not all of them belong to the First Order - or the Resistance.

“Who -“

“I still have friends,” Leia states simply, giving him a wink.

“Supreme Leader, who will we be taking orders from, if you’ll be on the ground?” Admiral Griss asks.

“What do you mean?” Ben asks.

“Who will we, um, listen to?” the Admiral questions. Ben grins at his stuttering, delighting in how _uncomfortable_ this whole thing has made them.

“Oh,” he nods, “Mom.”

Griss looks as though his eyes will fall from his head.

“M-“ he begins, “Mom?”

“Yeah. Mom. My mom. You’ve met?” The Admiral nods. “Great. She’s in charge.”

And he walks away.

He’s aware of Rey trailing behind him and of Leia at his side.

“You should speak to them, Ben,” his mother says quietly, nodding to the field of people and ships.

“I don’t think I should,” he admits with a shake of his head. “You’re better at speeches. I trust you’ll come up with something inspiring.”

Leia rolls her eyes.

“Despite your every effort _not_ to be like him, you are _very much_ your father’s son,” she tells him, lifting a hand to place it on his cheek. Ben stoops to let his mother press a kiss to his brow, watching as she does the same with Rey. “May the Force be with you both.”

She retreats into the command shuttle, leaving Rey and Ben and Luke standing on the battlefield, watching as everyone disperses to their fighters and shuttles. The Falcon rises up into the air and takes it’s spot on the front line, hovering like a beacon in a dark night.

“He’s coming,” Luke says.

And because Ben is feeling very anxious and trying not to translate it to anger so instead pure, unadulterated _sass_ has taken over his body, he says, “You know we have the Force too, right? No need to be so ominous, old man.”

Luke shrugs, unperturbed by thirteen-year-old-Ben’s sudden reappearance. “Goes with the aesthetic.”

The crackling sound of static fills the air, reverberating over the battlefield as every speaker opens, tuned in to the frequency of the command center. Leia clears her throat, and Ben reaches his hand out blindly for Rey’s as his mother begins to speak.

“Here we stand at the gates of the galaxy, which will change again and again and again. History does not repeat itself, but it will always rhyme. Ahead is the oppressor, the true tyrant, the monster that has swept out worlds into chaos and tears. Brothers against sisters, sons and daughters against mothers and fathers -“ Leia’s voice cracks, “No more. The many are stronger than the few, and today the many rise up to finally free this galaxy from the chains of the past. Mistakes have been made on both sides, and today the First Order and the Resistance stand as a united front against the thing that has asked us to destroy each other, to turn on those we love. Every battle, every shot fired, it has led to this moment. I ask you not as Senator or Princess or General Leia Organa - but as a _mother,_ as a citizen of this galaxy, to stand with me today, and set aside the mistakes that we all have made, the hurt we have _all_ caused.

“I have lived through one rebellion and another, the rise and fall of Republics and Empires, and I can tell you with certainty - we have been wrong. It took a lot for me to see it, but now I know that both the Sith _and_ the Jedi were wrong. The light and the dark rise together, and this has proven that we not only need to work in tandem with each other, but that the Force connecting all things requires both light _and_ dark to survive. There is dark and light in all of us - today, we will use our justified anger to overthrow an evil system decades in the making, and tomorrow, we will use our peace to rest and to build something better. Tomorrow, when the sun rises, the galaxy will be draped in gray - as it always should have been. My friends, all I ask of you today is that you find something to fight for, whatever that may be. Your family, your friends, a place in this story - whatever it may be. We will do better than before.”

Ben listens to his mother speak and is suddenly _very_ grateful that he’s turned away from the rest of the people on the field because tears are streaming freely down his face.

 _“Ben,”_ Rey says his name softly, dripping in awe, and points forward. He lifts his eyes, and before them are the ghosts of every Jedi, even the ones who had left the path, that he knows of - at the front, stands Ahsoka Tano, shrouded in a bluish-gray glow, and beside her stands Anakin Skywalker.

They say nothing.

Ben nods.

The sound of ships coming out of hyperspace rips through the air, and outside of Naboo’s atmosphere comes hundreds of ships, a large fleet, but not as large as he’d anticipated - and he breathes a sigh of relief at that.

Finally, Ahsoka speaks: “The Emperor’s followers have pledged themselves to him through the Force. Destroy him, and you destroy them all.”

“Where is he?” Rey asks.

“He will be in the largest star destroyer, hiding, like a coward,” Anakin provides.

“Yeah, seen that before,” Ben grumbles, and beside him, Rey’s energy grows a little, as if she’s almost _excited._ She’s thinking about Snoke’s throne room.

Leia must see the ghosts as well, because a humming comes from behind them, as everyone seems to wonder if she’s concluded her speech. He can feel the prickle of her Force signature that says yes, his mother sees who has joined them. But finally, the crackle of the microphone resumes, and Ben can hear the deep breath she takes.

“My friends,” she says, “May the Force be with you, always.”

The star destroyers begin to descend into the atmosphere.

Rey, Ben, and Luke ignite their lightsabers.

The Force holds it’s breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The inspiration for Rey’s outfit!](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/441634307207425748/)


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter will be coming soon, I promise! Thanks for sticking with me :))))  
> Follow me on twitter @kwritesfanfic!!  
> Also, consider buying me a coffee to help me start a small business and also continue writing? :') https://ko-fi.com/kaywrites

“Stand down, young Skywalker. Stand down, and your army will be spared,” the dragging sound of the Emperor’s voice pours over the battlefield, the sky darkening with the entrance of hundreds of starships, a destroyer looming above them all. Rey bristles, her hackles rising as if she’s a Loth-wolf ready to lunge. In Ben’s mind, she’s seen what this man looks like, and she’s already imagined all the ways that they could kill him. “Kneel, you foolish boy, and perhaps you can ascend to greatness yet.”

“I’m really tired of that argument,” Ben huffs beside her, swinging his saber in an arch and stepping further out onto the field. “You want me? Come get me.”

In her head, Rey can hear Palpatine’s laugh - her heart seizes in her chest, stuttering out halfway beats that make her sternum tighten and her ribs hurt. Her hands shake where they clutch her saber, vigilantly watching Ben’s back as he steps away from her, all the while sending thoughts of love and strength and everything she wants for him, for them, so at odds with the fight they’re preparing to have.

 _We have to get up to that ship,_ Ben thinks to her, and Rey presses the communique device in her ear.

“Leia? The Emperor is in the star destroyer,” she tells her, and Ben seems a little prickly about that, but he doesn’t know her idea yet.

“We can take the fighters, no problem,” Poe says.

“Concentrate all fire on the star destroyer as soon as we break their fighters formations,” Leia states, clear and clipped, precise.

A chorus of, “Copy, General,” comes through the headpiece.

The first fighter fires, and chaos begins to rain down on the lush planet.

“What exactly is your plan?” Ben asks, the moment the screech of lasers can be heard bouncing through the valley.

“Crash the destroyer, obviously,” she tells him.

“Provided you can coax him out of the atmosphere,” Luke grumbles, as they narrowly avoid a shot coming their way while they book it back to the command shuttle.

“Yeah, I got a plan,” Rey huffs, “It involves some ships.”

“I gotcha, Rey,” Lando laughs through the comm device.

“There’s no way we’re gonna be able to get out of the atmosphere without them noticing,” Ben shakes his head warily.

“Oh, yes there is,” Lando states, “We’re light speed skipping, baby!”

“What?!” Ben’s shout is near comical, as he whirls around to glare up at the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon. “There’s absolutely _no way_ you’re gonna be able to get half a fleet _behind_ the star destroyer -“

“We got the best pilots in the galaxy, _of course_ we can,” it’s Luke who speaks then, nodding to Poe’s fighter hovering near the Falcon.

“I think Ben is the best pilot in the Resistance, actually,” Poe admits over the line.

“Thanks, Dameron, but also, I’m not part of the Resistance, and neither are you. Don’t make me come up with a stupid new name,” Ben growls, but Rey feels his glee when he comes to terms with yes, her plan will _totally_ work, because her plans _always_ work.

“Not always,” he tells her, “Only most of the time.”

They make a break for the remaining fighters stashed at the edge of the field, while through the comms Poe is shouting orders at his squadron, already peeling off from the main attack.

“You wanna fly?” Ben asks, as they reach his fighter.

“I’m a better shot than you,” she states with a grin, “You take controls. Don’t crash.”

“Don’t crash,” he mocks, “When have I _ever -“_

“Let’s go, Solo, we don’t have all day!” Lando says, and in the background, Rey can hear Chewbacca’s roar. She straps herself in and wraps her hands around the guns.

“On your mark, Dameron,” Ben states.

“Did you two used to be friends?” Rey asks, “I thought about it but hadn’t gotten the chance to ask. You seem to know each other really well -“

“Rey, do you really wanna have this conversation _now?”_ Ben asks, but there’s the barest hint of amusement in his voice that makes her grin.

“You’ll have to tell me the stories one day,” she tells him.

“I’ll tell you one right now,” Poe says in her ear, “When Ben was twelve he knocked over an entire tower of his mother’s wine glasses because he thought it would be funny to try and climb -“

“That’s enough from the pilot,” Ben growls, and blares a signal through the main channel to cut him off. Rey laughs, half out of nervousness and half because it really is funny.

“You ready, Uncle Lando?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be, Benji,” the man states.

“I’m gonna have to have a long talk with these people about nicknames and stories,” Ben mutters, “Break my ship and I’m gonna tell everyone that you cheat at sabacc.”

Rey is halfway through another bout of laughter when they begin jumping to lightspeed, and before she can regain her breath they’re behind the Emperor’s star destroyer, guns already pointing at the weakest spots.

“Crowd him in - we need him to crash into the atmosphere!” Poe shouts, and the formation tightens.

Rey feels a particular type of exhilaration rip through her as the ship before them begins to groan, struggling under the weight of losing it’s balance. She feels triumphant - but it’s fleeting. In her head, Rey hears the Emperor’s roar and feels when the tendrils of the dark Force reach for them.

“They’re locking on! Break!” Poe shouts, as a squad of enemy fighters swings around the Destroyer and into their way.

“We have to get inside,” Ben tells her, and Rey nods in solemn understanding.

“Poe, we’re breaking off and going in - he won’t hurt us yet. Keep firing and bring the destroyer down,” Rey says, and promptly cuts off the earpiece before she can listen to Poe’s reply. They shoot forward and fire stops as they near the mouth of the ship.

Ben’s Force energy is spiking like Rey has never felt before, and when they land, he looks back at her with a particularly scared expression.

“How should we do this?” He asks, hand finding the lightsaber strapped to his belt. “Should we go through or around?”

 _Through,_ Rey tells him, not having the heart to say out loud that she’s ready to kill, to annihilate anyone in her path at this moment, to swing her lightsaber through the stomach of every Sith who would keep her from a future with Ben.

They exit the fighter with lightsabers at the ready.

✹✹✹✹

There haven’t been many times in Ben Solo’s life that he feels as though he actually take on the galaxy. Normally, taking on the galaxy comes with his own internal brand of self-doubt that manifests itself into severe depression and recklessness - but here, now, with Rey at his side, everything feels like a fever dream. He pays no attention to who falls at his blade, how many lasers might be firing his way, he simply surges forward at Rey’s back, every singular thought in his head some variation of _Rey,_ of protecting her, of making sure she’s in a position to clear their path, to make sure that he gives her space to use her power. He’s content to play her backup, to follow behind her like the dutiful Knight and soldier that he really is, as she faces the fight head-on.

Where once her swings were reckless, she’s unbearably controlled now, precise in her every movement, from how she extends her hand and the Force flows from her fingertips to every step she takes. If he weren’t focused on not dying, Ben might fall at her feet in amazement of it. The exhilaration of the two of them together, manipulating the Force to bend to their will and forcing everything else away, feels _right._

They make their way steadily to the inside of the ship, quickly leaving a pile of bodies in their wake. Rey is panting, but there’s a strange glow to her cheeks from extensive use of the Force. Ben nods.

It’s not hard to locate the Emperor. He’s in the heart of the ship, guarded by -

“Traitor!”

_The Knights of Ren._

Ben finds himself barking out laughter at the incredulousness of it, at the fact that he should have just _known_ it was going to go this way. The only one missing is -

“Voe?” Rey asks, and Ben picks up on the feeling at the same moment she does, and they both turn to find their friend stepping over the leg of a fallen Sith, approaching them with more people at her back.

“Tai,” Ben sees him, the man he hasn’t seen in so many years, since the night he left Luke’s academy, and subsequently the friendship he’d found in Voe and Tai and Hennix. Tai has aged well, with only fine lines giving away the fact that more than ten years have passed since the two men have last seen each other.

“Solo,” Tai greets, pulling his hood down.

“Your daughter,” Ben chokes, beginning to shake his head.

“Will know that whatever happens, her parents fought beside their oldest friend - a man they believe in,” Tai states, and it’s a hand extended without the physical element, the metaphorical vine of friendship, of forgiveness that Ben doesn’t deserve. “I have always believed in you.”

“As nice as this is, we have six murderous Knights standing in front of us, and I thought we were on a time schedule,” Tenel Ka Djo, now the Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium, so many years removed from the spitfire red-haired girl he’d known on Yavin 4. It’s then that Ben realizes that everyone standing behind Voe, he _knows_ them -

“The other Jedi from Luke’s temple,” Rey says quietly beside them.

“Jedi itching for a fight, so can we take care of this banthashi -“

“For Queen Mother, you really have a _terrible_ mouth, Tenel,” Voe shakes her head, moving to stand beside Rey, as they face the remaining Knights.

Ben feels like he could fall to his knees, overcome with emotion that’s somewhere between bewilderment and intense, near-debilitating relief, some sort of joy making his chest tighten.

“Together?” Rey asks.

Ben grins. “Together.”

For the first time since he left Luke’s academy and sold his entire soul to Snoke, Ben feels like perhaps he _is_ a little bit of a Jedi, despite everything.

They make quick work of the Knights, and Ben finds he feels no remorse at all, stepping around his fallen once-comrades and into the throne room.

“This is familiar,” he tells Rey.

“Much better now that I’m not in cuffs,” she jokes, but he can hear the shakiness, the fear in her voice that’s living in his own head as they step inside, Voe and Tai and the others close behind.

“Well, well,” the Emperor says, and the ship gives a shuddering groan, jostling them all. “I cannot say that I was expecting this.”

They are quiet. Before them, the Emperor is weak and withering, sitting on a throne of black obsidian, much like Snoke’s.

“I truly did not expect such a show. Are these your friends, young Skywalker? Incredible, how they have forgiven you. Do you think you deserve it?”

Ben swallows past a lump in his throat. “No,” he admits. “I don’t.”

 _Ben,_ Rey admonishes in his head, vibrating beside him.

 _Trust me,_ he tells her.

“Well, it is a shame then, that I will have to kill all of you. Perhaps I will start with your lovely wife,” Palpatine says, moving to stand, hand outstretched and tendrils of the Force already reaching for them, but a fluttering blue light appears in the room and stops him in his tracks.

Whoever the ghost is, it doesn’t make itself known, but the energy of the Force is there, acting like a shield between the Emperor and them.

“Enough!” Palpatine bellows, and before Ben can blink, lightning shoots out of his fingertips and encloses all of them. There’s a ripping sensation that goes through Ben’s entire body, lifts him from the ground and vibrates through his whole body. It’s the opposite of his Bond with Rey - while that force gives, this one takes. The warm feeling that comes with the Bond is far away from this cold, draining sensation that immediately makes him nauseous, as if he’s being shaken upside down.

The ship shudders and Palpatine’s hold on them breaks.

Tai is the first one up, as the ship tilts leftward. Ben watches as he scoops Voe in his arms as they all go sliding, grabbing Ben by the leg as he goes. Rey reaches out a hand, and at once all of them hit the wall with a shattering force.

“Ship’s going down, guys! Hope you’re not still on it!” Poe’s voice is crackling through his ear, and Ben vaguely registers that his arm _may_ have popped out from it’s socket.

“Yeah, we’re still here,” he grits out, tugging Rey against his chest.

“Ben, we won’t get out in time, we have to let it go down,” Rey gasps, “But I have an idea.”

“Great, hope it’s not what I think it is,” Voe says, but takes Rey’s outstretched hand anyway.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll just _die,”_ Tenel jokes, pushing herself up onto her feet. “But I doubt it, unfortunately.”

Ben follows Rey’s lead and holds his hand out for Tai’s. Slowly, all of them lock into a tight circle. Rey takes a deep breath. The blue light that had appeared between them and Palpatine is back.

Rey takes a breath, and the shaking around them seems to dim - it’s still there, but it’s outside of what they’ve created within the Force.

“Be with me,” Rey whispers.

The light grows, and it surrounds them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Tai and Ben’s backstory low-key will make you cry.](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Tai)


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot going on in this chapter! But we're so close to the end, and I definitely made myself pretty emotional writing this one :')  
> Thank you for sticking with me!  
> Follow me on twitter @kwritesfanfic!

“Be with me,” Rey begs, eyes squeezed closed, as the Force slowly falls around them like a blanket. “Ahsoka, Anakin, Obi-Wan, _anyone -_ be with us.”

The shuddering of the ship threatens to throw Rey off of her feet, but she can feel Ben’s Force signature in her head like an anchor, his hand in hers and their friends around them, connecting like roots of a tree, tangling their signatures together until their Forces become a rainforest canopy, draping over all of them.

Rey squeezes Ben’s hand.

She needs them all for this to work.

 _I can’t,_ he starts to tell her, _They won’t -_

 _Ben Solo,_ Rey admonishes, the words shaking around her skull as the air around them grows hotter with the fire of preparing to crash through Naboo’s atmosphere.

“If you only ask, Ben, you’d be surprised at how willing people are to offer their help,” Anakin says, and Rey hears it through Ben’s head.

There’s a thunderous groan and the ship begins to tip again.

“Be with me,” Ben says, quiet and firm. _Be with us._

_We’ve always been here._

When the ship breaks through the atmosphere, Rey hardly feels it - a containment field surrounds them, the Force humming around them as. It braces them from the worst of the impact, but the energy expended from holding it up, even _with_ help, makes Rey’s vision spot with white.

The force of a crashing landing rips them all apart, and Rey finds herself thrown back, and her vision goes dark.

✹✹✹✹

“Solo? Solo? Wake up, buddy, I’m not carrying you out of here, you weigh more than a fucking tauntaun,” Poe’s voice swims in his head and it’s frankly _not_ the nicest thing to wake up to after being violently thrown around a starship.

“Rey,” Ben gasps out.

“She’s fine, buddy - you okay? You good? We can’t find the Emperor -“

“Stop touching me, Dameron,” Ben growls, forcing himself up only to have Rey launch herself at him. Her tiny hands touch every part of him all at once - his hair, his face, his shoulders, his chest - checking for any injuries with her touch and scanning with her eyes.

“Your plan worked,” he tells her hoarsely, offering her the best grin he can find in the moment before he coughs up a lungful of smoke.

Rey opens her mouth to speak when a bolt of lightning shoots their way, and Ben only has enough wherewithal to shove her under him and drag Poe out of the way, nearly tossing him to the ground.

“Ben!” Voe shouts, and he looks up to find her wrenching a durasteel panel out of the way before offering her hand. “Get him out into the open!”

Heart thundering in his chest, Ben pushes Rey in Voe’s direction and then Dameron, before sliding down the slanted floor and landing on his feet, rolling out of the opening and into the summer air with a gasp. The light is unbearable for a moment, but he has no time to lament how he’s feeling, because Rey has latched onto his shirt and pulled him up.

The moment he begins to move, the First Order and the Resistance’s fleets are firing everything they have at the star destroyer they’ve just vacated. Finn and Rose are helping the others to safety, and Rey hasn’t yet let go of Ben’s hand.

“Look out!” Finn shouts, and Ben turns to find that the Emperor is stepping out of the crashed destroyer with a hand held up, the Force tensing in anticipation of the use of dark energy.

Ben pushes Rey down.

“Fight me, young Skywalker! Do what your grandfather never could!”

Ben, sprawled on top of Rey in the high grass as bolts of lightning singe the ground around them, lets out a heaving sigh.

“You believe that she will save you, don’t you? You believe that your love for her has redeemed you?”

Rey rolls out from under him and pulls him up. They raise their sabers as more Force lightning is sent their way. The tugging sound of other saber’s igniting and the safety of blasters being thumbed off comes from behind them, and Ben puts Rey behind him as they back up, lightsaber still raised.

“She will turn on you, just like everyone else has. She will never forgive your faults. She will never forget how you have murdered her friends, the damage you have wrought on the galaxy. She will never truly love you, young Skywalker.”

“Don’t listen to him, Ben!” Behind him, Rey is vibrating with unused energy, and he can feel the way hot tears prick at her eyes. His arm tightens around her back. “I do love you. _I love you.”_

“Foolish child! He knows what he has to do. And he will leave you just like everyone else. You are no one -“

Ben oustretches his hand and Force shoves Palpatine back with a roar.

His body flies back like a limp animal, crumbles momentarily to the ground before he rises again, and Force lightning catches them by surprise. It singes Ben’s skin like heat, but it only lasts for a second, because before he knows it Tai and Tenel have placed their sabers crossed in front of Ben and Rey, shielding them from the lightning.

With a vicious shout, Palpatine throws them all back.

“Darth Sidious!” Luke bellows, stepping past Ben where he once again - this _has_ to stop happening - lies sprawled back on the grass. “It is time that we finish this.”

The sound of the Force clashing crackles above Ben, but all he can do is turn his head to look at Rey. Her eyes are filled with tears, split lip still bleeding, and without a word their fingers entwine, neither capable of speaking. Ben has never felt so weak in his life.

It’s as if all of the Force has drained out of him - even their dyad Bond is a flickering thing, quiet and trembling.

“I love you,” Rey says quietly.

“I know,” Ben tells her, limbs heavy like lead. “I know. And I love you.”

 _We have always been with you,_ Ahsoka says.

_Alone, never have you been._

_The Force surrounds you,_ Anakin tells them softly, as Ben lets his eyes flutter closed. _Bring back the balance._

_Feel the Force flowing through you._

_Let it lift you,_ Obi-Wan whispers.

_Rise, Ben. Rise, Rey._

Ben opens his eyes. Rey squeezes his fingers.

_These are your final steps._

Rey catches Luke with the Force as he’s sent flying back.

“Young Skywalker,” Palpatine coos, lips pulled back in a grin that looks more like a snarl.

_The Force will be with you, always._

_Go get ‘em, kid,_ Han Solo’s voice is clear as day, as if he’d never left, as if Ben really has heard his father say those words every day of his life. He lifts his saber.

“My name,” he says, “Is Ben Solo.”

“And it is time that you leave our family alone,” Rey states, stepping up beside him, eyes blazing as the light returns to them. The Force lifts around them, as they draw it up from the ground, from the souls of the past, from everything that is between them and every life and every death and every memory of laughter, of aloneness, of anger - it makes the planet tremble.

Their blades cross as Palpatine’s hand raises and tendrils of the Force explode from his fingertips.

Everything flashes blue, to purple, to red, to yellow to green to gold to white -

The Force explodes like a neutron star collapsing, and the grass is flattened around them in a radius as they push, both gritting their teeth.

Palpatine falls - crumbles and then disintegrates - as if he’d never been there at all.

✹✹✹✹

When Rey opens her eyes, she’s not quite sure what she expects to see - but it’s definitely not the stark white surroundings of a med bay. Panic immediately seizes her, and despite every bone and muscle in her body protesting, Rey sits up, her eyes scanning the whole room - before finally landing on Ben, sleeping peacefully beside her.

“Lay back down, you absolute maniac,” Voe states, striding into the room dressed in not the black garb of the Knights of Ren, nor the traditional robes of the Jedi, but a structured orange-gold dress that reminds Rey of a sunrise. Suddenly, a bouncing figure is coming out from behind Voe, with white hair tangled up on her head and the most brilliant blue eyes Rey has ever seen - _Tai’s_ eyes - and Voe’s lovely, dark skin.

“Hello, Miss Rey,” the little girl says, trotting over to her bedside. “Mom said that I wasn’t supposed to follow her in here but now I’m here because I’m fast and sneaky, and I wanted to meet you and say that I really, _really_ -“

“Cora,” Voe warns, walking over in an attempt to peel the little girl away from the bed, “I _told you -“_

“Hi, Cora,” Ben’s voice is rough but there, and Rey’s head whips to the side to find her husband offering the little girl a gentle smile, already poking at the tubes that connect to his torso.

“Hi, Mr. Ben!”

“Supreme -“ Voe starts, but Ben cuts her off.

“Nope,” he shakes his head. “Just Ben. Can I ask you a favor, Cora?”

The little girl furiously nods her head.

“I’m really, _really_ hungry. Mind finding the doctor for me?”

Without a word, Cora skips from the room and leaves Voe and Rey and Ben staring after her, all three with similar expressions of amusement and slight disbelief.

“The two of you are not supposed to be awake yet,” Voe sighs, reaching over and pressing the comm button to call the doctor, at least, that’s what Rey assumes.

“How did we get here?” Rey questions, ignoring her friend’s protestations as she sits up and pulls the bacta patches off of her arms. Beside her, Ben starts doing the same.

“We brought you - would you two _please_ stop removing your bandages?” Voe huffs, “You’re worse than children. You passed out after Palpatine crumbled, and we detained the rest of the fleet and brought you here.”

“The rest of the fleet? All of them?” Ben asks, moving to swing his legs out of the bed. Voe stretches out her hands and pins them both back with the Force, a fierce, yet amused look in her eyes as she does so.

“All of them,” she assures. “Now, would it kill you two to _rest?”_

“Yes, probably,” Rey admits.

“I would recommend _minimally strenuous_ activities for a few days, Emperor, Empress,” the doctor who walks in behind Cora tells them. Behind her, is Leia, sweeping into the room in a dark blue dress with her hair done up in an elaborate braid.

“They’re putting lunch on the table for you now,” Leia informs them, stepping over to Rey and taking her hand. “How are you feeling?”

Rey thinks for a moment. Other than a few stinging cuts, she’s healing fast with the help of the Force, and no doubt actual Force healing administered by one of the many Jedi who are now residing at wherever it is they are, she feels fine. Great, even.

“Perfect,” Rey tells Leia, “I feel perfect.”

The older woman gives her a good-natured eye roll but helps her up anyway, making sure Rey is planted firmly on her feet before crossing over to her son.

“And you, little starfighter?” she asks.

“Better if you wouldn’t call me that,” Ben jokes, but accepts his mother’s help anyway. “I’m okay, mom.”

“Good.”

Leia and Voe wait for them outside the room as the doctor debriefs them, firmly stating that they are not to use the Force _or_ their bodies too excessively for the next few days, and to return to her immediately if any stitches begin to open. Rey is practically vibrating with the need to hold Ben, the annoyance at being separated from him for so long - even if she _was_ unconscious - becoming practically unbearable. He holds her hand as the doctor speaks, but it’s not _nearly_ enough.

 _The doctor says no excessive activity, Rey,_ he tells her, amused, _What you’re thinking of_ ** _definitely_** _counts as strenuous._

 _Sod off,_ Rey thinks, smirking despite herself.

They’re sent away to change before lunch, and Rey practically skips as they make their way upstairs. It’s warm with all of the windows are open in the villa, letting in the sweet, fragrant summer air that sticks to Rey’s skin. She’s never felt so _light._

The door closes behind them, and Rey turns to face her husband.

There’s still a little bit of bruising around his right eye, and his lip is a little swollen from where it had split, but Rey has never seen anything more beautiful than him, standing in the noonday sunlight and smiling softly at her. Rey steps forward and wraps her arms around him, happily jumping up into his arms when he leans down to pick her up.

He walks them into the ‘fresher and only puts her down to help her remove her clothes, letting the starchy fabric drop to the floor before they both step under the spray of water. Actually getting clean isn’t their current priority, though - all Rey can think about is kissing every inch of his skin that she can find. It feels triumphant, that they can do this without a threat looming over their heads, without voices to drown out the sounds of each other’s names.

Ben presses her back against the ‘fresher wall, the tile cool but his body hot when he leans in and presses open-mouthed kisses to her neck, laving at her skin and sliding his hand between her legs. His fingers press inside of her easily, moving slowly and coaxing a delicious, quiet orgasm out of her that feels like sunlight dappling through trees.

“I love you,” he whispers, only letting go to guide himself into her body, sinking in with a groan of happiness that Rey wholeheartedly reciprocates. The water lingers on their skin and blankets the bathroom in warmth, the mist hanging hazy and pleasant over them as they cling to each other.

Rey will never get enough of him.

This Ben Solo, who looks at her with such wide brown eyes and a smile that borders on shy, has captured her whole heart and soul, and Rey knows that she’s been gone for him since the moment they met, that she would have gladly put down weapons immediately if it meant she could have him like this, forever and ever. The only weapon he wields against her now is a devilish smirk and the ability to drag such pleasure from her body that it’s nearly unfair.

“Come for me, Rey,” Ben whispers, lips pressed behind her ear to be heard over the roar of the water. “You’re so beautiful. Come for me, _cyar’ika.”_

On second thought, his words are definitely a weapon, especially when he speaks to her like this, soft and dark and velvety.

Rey nearly cries when he comes inside of her, beyond elated at the feeling of having him against her again, with the knowledge that he’s _safe,_ and there’s nothing in the galaxy that can stop them from doing this over and over and over again.

Well, Rey may make an exception for eating, because her stomach sounds like a _beast._ Ben sets her down and laughs into her shoulder, sweet and unburdened, and they make quick work of washing each other before stepping back out into the air.

Rey throws on the first thing she finds in her closet that looks comfy, which ends up being a lovely green shift dress made of a soft, shiny material that spills over her curves like water. Ben turns, sliding a white shirt over his head and stares at her. She forgoes shoes, leaves her hair down and instead decides that anything more complicated than putting on clothes is something she doesn’t wish to bother with.

“You look like,” Ben starts, staring at her with an intense expression, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he thinks, “You look like summertime.”

Rey raises an eyebrow as Ben steps forward to take her hand.

“Like life,” he says, “Something new.”

“You’re going to run out of adjectives, eventually,” Rey teases, but Ben only smiles.

“Never,” he assures her, sliding an arm around her shoulder as they head downstairs.

✹✹✹✹

“Let them eat before you start talking politics, Leia,” Luke admonishes, and Ben watches with an eyebrow raised while his uncle and mother begin to bicker, both of them waving their hands in the same way. Beside him, Rey tears into a piece of fried Nuna leg, smirking as she does so.

“I’ll brief you,” Poe says, with a good-natured shake of his head. “We’ve detained all the remaining members of Palpatine’s fleet, and generally we didn’t sustain too many losses during the fight. The worst of the damage was done to the hills and to our equipment. The First Order Officers are waiting on your word for what to do with the prisoners.”

Ben takes a bite of bread and looks at Poe, who looks back with a vaguely challenging expression. Ben shrugs. “I don’t know what to do with them; why are you looking at me like that?”

“You’re the Supreme Leader, Solo, or did you just totally forget -“

“Yeah, about that,” Ben says, clearing his throat to get the rest of the table's attention. “I have a better idea. Now, obviously we need a new set of rules because you all know how much I hate repeating history, and I stand firmly in my belief that just because something works doesn't mean it can't be improved -"

"Spit it out, Solo," Luke says.

"How do you think the galaxy would take to re-establishing a democratic union?”

Beside him, Rey grins, and it’s like sunlight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Voe’s Dress!](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/823806956825087534/)
> 
> [Rey’s Green Dress!](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/387520742940256616/)


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It ends - but life goes on.   
> (CW: mentions of pregnancy, children because they're a warning in and of themselves)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so very much for being on this journey with me! This was honestly a joy to write and I loved being on this ride with my fave characters, and all your support means the world. THANK YOU! Please look out for new fics and one-shots (I am currently writing a part two for a fic i wrote a WHILE ago, Desperado, which you can find on my page) Also, follow me on twitter @kwritesfanfic and tumblr at starwarringavengers!   
> If you enjoyed this at all, consider dropping me a comment even if it's just a heart or a smiley face - it really warms my heart to know that you've read this and what you've liked about it!  
> May the Force be with you always. <3

_Epilogue_

_18 Months Later_

“BB-8, can I have that wrench over there?” Rey asks, pointing vaguely in the direction of the tool she’s looking for as BB-8 whirs around, head twisting comically as it looks for what she’s pointing at in a pile of… _more tools._

BB-8 picks up a carbon chisel and holds it out to her.

“No, definitely not that one,” she laughs. “Smaller one.”

An impact wrench is put in front of her eyes.

“Not that one either,” she says, “It’s the, that thing,” she tries to explain, pointing once again at the tool lying closest to BB, who beeps in something that sounds a little bit like indignation.

 _Finally,_ BB-8 picks up the hydrospanner in his clamp and presents it to Rey.

“Good job, buddy,” she says, offering a smile.

“Hey, little miss Jedi,” Finn pokes his head under the Falcon where she’s sprawled on her back, trying to attach the last of the new exterior panels.

“Morning Finn,” Rey greets, “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“Checking on you, obviously,” Finn jokes, leaning down to look at her with a lopsided grin on his face. “You should be getting ready soon.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rey says, reaching up to rub the sweat from her eyes and definitely only succeeding in rubbing grease all over her face instead.

“Should you really be doing this?” Finn asks, “I mean, aren’t you supposed to like, _rest_ when you’re pregnant?”

Rey smiles. “Finn, do I ever _rest?”_ she asks, and her friend gives her a glowing smile in return, offering her his hand as she goes to stand.

“I suppose not,” Finn admits with a sigh, “Decided what you’re gonna name her yet?”

“Finn, we don’t even _know_ if it’s a boy or girl yet - we literally just found out five days ago. Why would I know what its name will be?”

“Well, it’s definitely a girl, everyone has called it - even _Leia_ says she thinks it’s a girl.”

Rey rolls her eyes, toweling of her hands and cocking a hip as she glances up at the house. “I didn’t know you were all doctors,” she jokes, offering her arm out to Finn as they make their way back up the hill to the villa. “How did you guys manage to plan a party so fast, anyway? And why is it always at _my_ home?”

“Never underestimate the power of Rose and Kaydel when they are determined,” Finn tells her, “And it might have something to do with the fact that your house is massive.”

“See you at the party, Finn,” Rey tells him with a good-natured knock on his shoulder. “Tell your boyfriend not to eat all of my food.”

“Hey, Senate days are long - I can’t control Poe’s hunger!”

“Control his mouth, then!”

“If only I could,” Rey hears Finn mutter as she bounces her way up the stairs, headed to wash the grease from her face and the smell of metal off of her skin.

Her body hasn’t begun to change yet, after only five weeks of something growing inside of her, though she knows it will. For now, she feels…shockingly normal. Just like she always has. Her muscles still work and they’re strong and she can still fight and fly and all the things she usually does - but in the back of her mind, she knows that she’s growing something, something _really special._ And she already loves it so much.

At one point, she had thought that maybe she’d never had this - that the desert has ruined her body and any possible attempt at something so delicate and lovely, and it wasn’t until she had gone to see the physician after everything settled that she assured Rey that _yes, your body is fine and healthy,_ that she let herself admit what she wanted more than anything: a family.

It was Ben who figured it out first, much to her chagrin. He’d been laying with his head on her stomach one morning as she read through some reports, when he’d abruptly shot up and looked at her with a wide expression. She’d tried to ask him what was wrong, but barely got a word out before he quite literally _tackled_ her.

“Rey!” he’d breathed, “Rey - there’s - I think - when did you bleed last?”

She’d been completely and totally caught off-guard. It was just like him to give more thought to her biology than she does, in any case.

“I don’t know,” she’d admitted. Her cycle had always been irregular - she’d hardly ever bled growing up on Jakku and even when she was better fed and healthier, it almost always took her by surprise. “A few weeks, maybe?”

But she’d felt it then, as Ben had been looking at her. There was an extra tug between them, almost like the Bond, but not quite - just something _poking_ gently at the edges of the Force, as if asking to be let in. It was soft and quiet and gentle, a little knock on the door of Rey’s consciousness as she laid there and focused on it. Something wanted to be loved, and it wanted to grow inside of her and it was asking for her - for _them._

And then she’d burst into tears.

There had been a lot of that, in the past few days.

Ben has been attentive and slightly overbearing, though Rey can honestly say she’d expected as much. When she’d finally kicked (read: _kicked)_ him out of the bed this morning, he’d grumbled his whole way through getting dressed while Rey reiterated the importance of him actually showing up to the Senate and doing his job.

“My job is to love you,” he’d huffed, and Rey had grinned at that, but sent him out the door anyway with a kiss.

Now, she hears when the bedroom door swings open and he walks in, his heavy footsteps alerting her of his presence. Ben pokes his head into the bathroom and smiles at her as she sits in front of her mirror, running citrus-scented oil through her hair and humming quietly.

“I worked on the Falcon today,” she tells him, “The new exterior is looking really good, but I’m going to have to strip the control panel, I think, to get the buttons of the flight control unit unstuck. Oh, and we should probably look at redoing the sublight engines at some point -“

Rey doesn’t really notice that he’s stepped into the space behind her until he’s wrapping his hands around her waist and laughing.

“It’s so hot when you talk about spacecraft engineering,” he tells her, leaning down to press a kiss to her neck, then her jaw, then her temple, before dropping to his knees and turning her in her seat so that he can press his face into her stomach.

“Ben,” Rey sighs, carding a hand through his hair.

“Take good care of my girl today?”

“ _Why_ does everyone think it’s a girl?” Rey squeals, as Ben rains kisses down onto her torso.

“It’s the general consensus - so it must be true,” Ben jokes, sliding his hands under Rey’s thighs and tugging her to the edge of her seat, peeling open her robe with a gentle pull of the fabric. He lifts her legs over his shoulders and his mouth moves down from her stomach to nuzzle between her legs, a soft groan falling from his lips as he inhales her.

Rey flushes eight shades of red, still unused to this attention he’s been giving her body the past few days and all the things he’s been _saying_ about it, and how overly-sensitive she feels.

The reason he hadn’t wanted to leave the bed was because he was busy apparently trying to put _another_ baby in her. And she was almost surprised to find how much she could take of him before she shooed him away. The doctor assured her that it was normal - through her laughter, of course.

“ _Rey,”_ Ben sighs, gripping her hips to pull her closer, “You smell so _good._ And you taste different.”

Rey huffs. “Good different or bad different?”

Ben grins. “You taste good _all the time,”_ he assures her, “But you’re _so sweet_ right now.”

Then his tongue is inside her and Rey has no more capacity to ask questions, because every pass of his tongue is like a mini-orgasm that shivers up her spine as he laps at her until she’s a tangled, gasping mess above him. He picks her up in his arms and takes her to their bed, laying her down and diving back into taste her again, hands running over every past of her that he can reach. Rey tugs at his hair and whines, her legs shaking as she tries to pull him up towards her. It takes him only a few seconds to be as naked as she is, and Rey nearly growls at him when he just kneels there and stares at her, cock in his hand and _not inside her._

“Ben Solo, get over here _right now -“_

Rey gasps when he pulls her to the edge of the bed and slides inside of her, filling her and it _finally_ relieves the dull ache that she’s been feeling all day, now that her cunt has him to clench and flutter around. She sighs in happiness as Ben groans.

“ _Fuck,_ how are you so _tight?”_ His brow furrows as he takes her leg and spreads her open for him, fingertips running over her sensitive nipples and the barely-there swell of her stomach. He grins wickedly when he looks down at her, hand wrapped around her hip.

Rey is too busy gripping the sheets in her hands and sighing in bliss as he fucks her to notice that he’s got a particular glint in his eye.

With a growl he grabs her hand and lifts her, sliding out of her only to hoist her over his shoulder and leave her squealing. Ben carries her to the balcony, and the air hits her skin with all the sweetness of summer and the music of life. He sets her down at the railing, turning her to look out at the lake before fitting his body behind hers and leading her to spread her legs.

Finally, he’s back inside her and Rey feels like she can breathe again as she grips the edge of the stone and sighs, her body canting back to seek his.

“You are so beautiful, Rey,” Ben tells her softly, hand coming up to wrap in her hair, “And you’re going to look so fucking _lovely_ with my child growing inside you, do you know that? You’ll be so round with our love and I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off of you. You already feel so tight and sensitive and _sweet -_ I can’t wait.”

“I’m going to be _huge,”_ Rey jokes, reaching back to tangle her hand into his dark hair.

“I know,” Ben says, and she can feel him grin against her neck. “And you’re going to look _exquisite.”_

Rey comes crying his name, and she’s pretty sure that everyone downstairs - inside _and_ outside - can hear her.

✹✹✹✹

It’s a girl. Because _of course_ it’s a girl.

Rey curses Ben’s name and his frustratingly large genes to the high heavens, practically screaming at him in the delivery room that they will _not be having sex_ ** _ever again,_** _Ben Solo -_

That lasts approximately three weeks, after watching him tenderly hold their daughter in his arms and set her down in her crib, Rey practically pulls Ben’s face to her cunt by his hair and begs him quietly for another one, because delivery wasn’t _so_ bad.

✹✹✹✹

“Rey, _slow down,”_ Luke groans, following behind Rey as she sweeps through the halls of the Senate, her glittering red dress swaying across the marble floor behind her. She is resolutely _not_ listening to Luke.

Slow down? She has no idea what those words mean.

“Rey, perhaps we should consult -“

“Luke, please go tell Leia that she’ll have to watch my children for a few more hours,” Rey instructs, turning the corner to see her husband already staring out at the square, his hands crossed behind his back.

In the past five years, gray has begun to lace through his dark hair - but Rey loves it. Not a day goes by where she doesn’t think him the most beautiful thing in the galaxy.

Next to their children, of course.

She had planned to tell him about the third child she carries in her belly just today, but other matters need her attention at the moment.

“My love,” Rey greets, stepping up beside her husband and sneaking a glance at his face. His eyes are narrowed and brows pulled together in thought as he watches the onslaught of troops marching down the narrow street. The other Senators do not look nearly as calm as Ben does.

“Senator Solo,” Voe appears to their side, a holopad in hand. “Crimson Dawn. Led by former Sith Lord Darth Maul.”

“Great. I love when people who are supposed to be dead turn out not to be,” Ben says, sarcasm dripping from his voice in a way that makes Rey almost smile. “That all we’ve got?”

“At the moment,” Voe admits with a shrug, unbothered, before darting away to relay the information to the necessary individuals.

The lightsaber clipped to Ben’s belt twists into his hand. Rey smiles.

“Were you planning on telling me that you’re pregnant?” Ben asks.

“I was,” Rey states, “Figured I’d let you deal with this little issue first, before we celebrate.”

A smirk pulls at the corner of Ben Solo’s mouth, and Rey falls in love all over again.

“How thoughtful of you,” he jokes, but in his eyes, Rey can see the pure, unadulterated joy that the confirmation of the news brings him. After their daughter had come, Ben had taken over the majority of the emotional labor - she swears he cries when he watches their children sleep, but only when he doesn’t think she’s looking.

A black-cloaked figure saunters through the square on bionic legs.

The tugging sound of lightsabers being flicked on fills the air. Rey unholsters her own from under her skirts, the dual blades crossing in front of her to meet Ben’s.

“Together?” she asks.

Ben smirks, dark eyes dancing with the excitement of a fiery fight.

“Together,” he tells her.

When the fight reaches the steps of the Senate, it doesn’t last long.

After all, they’re unstoppable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey's Finale Dress :') [Rey's Finale Dress :') ](https://www.pinterest.com/pin/649714683724351860/)


End file.
